(Disclaimer: This transcript is auto-generated and may contain mistakes.)

Hey man, it's great to be here tonight. I'm sorry that it took me so long to get back down here. It's been a while and I haven't been here since you got into the new building and so everything looks great in the new building. You paid your dues at that other old building and you've earned a nice building now. And so you guys are really blessed down here. It's a great crowd tonight. It's great to see everything packed out and the soul winning maps looking good. I mean you guys have really got a lot of nice little pockets there developing and so I can tell you guys been doing a lot of soul winning down here and Brother Corbin Russell's doing a great job. Amen? So get behind his leadership down here. He's doing a great job. Thankful for that. And so tonight I want to preach about Jonah and Jonah is a guy that we automatically think of sometimes maybe in a negative light because we think about the fact that it's a book about him disobeying and then it ends up being a book about him having a bad attitude in the end. But actually Jonah probably got more people saved than like 99% of the Christians that are looking down on Jonah and saying like, oh man, Jonah is disobedient or he has a bad attitude. Well, where does that leave you? He got the whole town saved. All right, or he got a lot of people saved and so Jonah was actually a great man of God. We don't want to lose sight of that. Sometimes we read about mistakes that men of God in the Bible make but we need to realize that there's still great men of God or they wouldn't even be chosen by God to do these great works and so forth. And so we have in the book of the kings a record of Jonah pronouncing a different prophecy and that prophecy came true. So he gets a positive mention in another book and then here in the book of Jonah, he really ends up doing an amazing work for God. What the Bible is showing us is that God uses people that aren't perfect. Some of these preachers that can preach the hardest and rip some face, you know, sometimes they might go through a low point or be angry or have a bad attitude or get backslidden. Let him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall. No one is immune to this. No matter how great of a Christian you are, you could become backslidden like Jonah is here. So it says in verse one, Now the word of the Lord came unto Jonah the son of Amittai saying arise go to Nineveh that great city and cry against it for their wickedness is come up before me. And look, this is not unique in the Bible where God commands a preacher to preach hard against a certain city or to preach hard against a certain country. I mean if you read through the book of Isaiah, there's just whole chapters of here's what you're going to preach against Babylon. Here's where you're going to preach against the Philistines. Here's where you're going to preach against Edom. And it's just listing country after country. Each chapter is just ripping on a different country, you know, and we read the book of Amos. It's the same way where he's preaching against Damascus. He's preaching against Jerusalem. He's preaching against Samaria and just going down the list of these geographies hard preaching crying out with a loud voice calling out sin naming the sin is something that God's men have been commanded to do all throughout scripture. Okay, every real preacher in the Bible does some hard preaching against sin. It's not the only kind of preaching but it is a kind of preaching and so Jonah is being commanded to go preach hard against the city of Nineveh, but Jonah rose up to flee unto Tarshish from the presence of the Lord. So if you understand the basic geography here, okay, if you can picture the Mediterranean Sea and Israel's on the coast of that Mediterranean Sea what the Bible calls the Great Sea. So Israel's here. Well straight east pretty much is going to be heading you toward Assyria and Nineveh. Okay, Tarshish is like modern day Spain, you know Portugal that Iberian Peninsula. Tarshish is in that region of like Western Europe. Okay, so basically if you looked at a map and you looked up these places you would see that Jonah is going the exact opposite direction. So God's telling him go preach to Nineveh and he goes literally the exact opposite direction just trying to get as far from Nineveh as possible. Now, it's not like he just says no, I'll stay home. You know what I mean? Because he could have said like go to travel to Nineveh. He's just like no, I'm just gonna stay home. He's like not only am I not gonna go there, I'm actually gonna pay money to travel for no reason. Right? I mean, what's he got going on Tarshish? Nothing. He's lit and literally if you look at a map Tarshish is like the uttermost part of the earth going west. I mean that's where it that's literally he goes and says, you know, how far can I get in the exact opposite direction of the known world at that time? That would literally be the furthest point you could go to and that's what he's trying to do. Okay, so he really doesn't want to go to Nineveh at all. Okay, and he, you know, he probably thinks, you know, yeah, I'd like to see God make me go there now as far as I am now. So anyway, he gets on the ship and it says, so he paid the fare thereof. This is an unnecessary detail. Okay, why, I mean, why doesn't it tell us, hey, then he stepped on the ship, then he walked forward 10 steps. Okay, why do we need to know they paid the fare thereof? Whenever something's unnecessary, it's doubly important. Remember that when you're reading the Bible, if there's an unnecessary detail given, then it makes you ask the question, why is this detail given? That which is, and by the way, this works in conversation too. If you're talking to somebody and they start giving you a bunch of unnecessary details, ask yourself, why are you giving me that detail? And usually there's a reason why. Sometimes people are trying to pull the wool over your eyes and they'll start giving you these unnecessary details. Here, this detail is given because God's trying to teach us a lesson. When we see something unnecessary, it should cause us to pay more attention because God is putting that there for a reason. And the reason is to show us that when you disobey God, you pay the price. Disobey God, pay the price. So it's saying he went the opposite direction of God's will and as a result, he paid for it. Okay, so the symbolism of him just paying for the ticket is mentioned because you're paying the cost of disobeying God. And he went down into it. Again, the imagery of your life going downhill when you're not following God, when you're not obeying the word of God, when you're doing the opposite thing, your life goes downhill. Often in the Bible when people go down, it's something negative, it's something bad that's being symbolized. So he goes down into it to go with them unto Tarshish from the presence of the Lord, right? As if you can get away from the presence of the Lord. It's impossible to flee the presence of the Lord. But he thinks to himself, you know, is God going to follow me all the way to Tarshish? So, you know, he's going to get away from God. But obviously, we cannot escape God. That makes no sense. Verse four, but the Lord sent out a great wind into the sea. And there was a mighty tempest, tempest just means storm, in the sea, so that the ship was like to be broken, or you could say in our modern vedaca, it was likely to be broken, right? It was likely to be broken. It was probable that the ship was going to be smashed and destroyed. Then the mariners were afraid. Now the mariners, okay, we know the word marine, and something to do with the ocean. A mariner is a sailor. And when it says the mariners were afraid, these guys are experts. This is all they do. They just sail back and forth from Tarshish across the Mediterranean over and over again. They're scared. So this is not an ordinary storm. This is something extreme where they are freaked out by this. So they are afraid and they cry every man unto their God. And so, you know, they've got their little Buddha and whatever, and they're chanting and got their beads, and they're all praying to their individual gods. And it says they cast forth the wares that were in the ship into the sea to lighten it up. So the whole purpose of the voyage for them is to transport goods and merchandise back and forth across the Mediterranean. And, you know, it takes some passengers also, but mainly they're trying to bring goods. They're to the point now they're just aborting the mission. I mean, the whole point of the trip is bringing merchandise from A to B. They're to the point now where they're going to lose everything. I mean, the whole profit from the trip, they're going to lose money on this voyage now. They're just saying, we just want to live. We just want to survive. You know, basically they're like the mouse who doesn't want the cheese anymore. He just wants to get out of the trap at this point. Okay. So basically they just want to just get out of this with their skin. Okay. So they throw everything overboard. That shows how serious this is. They're willing to just trash the whole point of the trip. They throw all the wares overboard to lighten it. But Jonah was gone into the sides of the ship and he lay and was fast asleep. So this is funny, isn't it? They're all freaking out. They're counting their beads. They're praying. They're saying Hail Marys and everything else. And then basically he's in the bottom of the ship just fast asleep. Just doesn't even care. And you know, I think part of the symbolism here, there's a couple of things going on here. First of all, Jonah pictures Jesus Christ. Okay. Jonah, even though he's an imperfect person, guess what? Every Old Testament person who pictures Jesus Christ had problems because every person on the planet has problems, right? Every character in the Old Testament is flawed, imperfect human, but many of them picture Jesus Christ. And the Bible says to him, give all the prophets witness that through his name, whosoever believeth in him, believeth in Jesus, shall receive the remission of sins. So the Bible says, as Jonah was in the belly of the whale for three days and three nights, so shall the son of man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth. So Jesus compared himself to Jonah. So because Jonah pictures Jesus, there's a lot of symbolism here about the Lord Jesus. And one of these is we know that in the New Testament, Jesus Christ is going to be on a ship during a great storm. And what's he doing during the storm? He's down in the bottom sleeping. So Jonah is picturing that. Okay. He's sleeping in the bottom of the ship. And then he's also just like Jesus made the storm storm cease. He's going to make the storm stop too by being sacrificed. But even the fact that Jonah is going to sacrifice himself, that pictures Jesus sacrificing himself. He gets swallowed by the whale three days and three nights. Jesus is dead for three days and three nights. A lot of great imagery of Jesus in this story. So anyway, he's down in the bottom, just fast asleep. And they're just, they can't believe this. Do you know what's going on here? We're about to die. We just dumped everything overboard. The ship is about to be smashed apart by this great storm. Can you imagine how scary that would be? You're out in the ocean. I mean, and it's not like some rescue helicopter is going to come in and just start evacuating people. I mean, they're out in the middle of the ocean. The sea is raging. The ship's going to be ripped apart. They're dead. I mean, they go overboard. They're dead. It's over. And so these people feel like they're just minutes away from death, literally. And so they go down and they rebuke Jonah. Verse six, the ship master came to him and said unto him, what meanest thou, O sleeper? Arise, call upon thy God. If so be that God will think upon us that we perish not. And they said everyone to his fellow. Come and let us cast lots that we may know for whose cause this evil is upon us. So they cast lots and the lot fell upon Jonah. So this is just something random. We see the word lots in the Bible. You could think of lottery, right? Lots are when they basically are just doing a random check. It'd be sort of like if I got a bunch of straws and one straw is shorter than the rest. Okay, everybody take a straw. Whoever draws the short straw. Just some kind of a random, you know, hey, pick a number between one and 10. They basically just do a random thing and say, we're going to see whose fault this is. We're all going to pray to our gods and we're going to cast lots and see who it points to. Okay. Not a very scientific way of figuring out what the problem is, but in this case it worked because God wants them to know that Jonah is the bad guy. So basically God affects this and they end up figuring out, it says the lot fell upon Jonah. Verse eight, then said they unto him, tell us, we pray thee for whose cause this evil is upon us. What is thine occupation? So they don't know he's a preacher. So here they've been riding with him. They took him on the ship. He's not advertising the fact that he's a Christian. He's not advertising the fact that he loves the Lord. You know, when you're backslidden and you know you're backslidden and you're doing the wrong things and you're out of church, you don't necessarily proclaim the Lord at all times because you're maybe ashamed of how you're living right now. Okay. So he hadn't told them what religion he is. He hadn't told them that he's a preacher. They don't know anything about him. He just kind of paid his bill and just went down to the bottom of the ship and just went into a coma. Okay. So they ask him, you know, what's your occupation? What's your nationality? Right. Whence comest thou? What is thy country? Of what people are there? And he said to them, I'm a Hebrew and I fear the Lord, the God of heaven, which hath made the sea and the dry land. Boy, now he's just waxing eloquent about his faith, right? Now you tell us. Then were the men exceedingly afraid and said unto him, why hast thou done this? For the men knew that he fled from the presence of the Lord because he had told them. Now, that's an interesting wording there. It's kind of hard to say exactly what that means. I think there are about two different alternatives here. When it says they knew he fled from the presence of the Lord because he had told, did he just tell them right then and there? When it says he had told them, it sounds like he had already told them that, which is kind of strange, but that's how the text reads. Like he had told them that. So he didn't tell them what God he worships. He didn't tell them what religion he is. He didn't tell him what his nationality is. He did not tell them what his occupation is. It seems that literally the one thing that he told them is, I am fleeing from God. He didn't even say what God. They don't even know which God, what nation. You know, they might've just said, oh, so what, you know, what do you got going on Tarshish? You know, I'm running away from God. I'm going to bed, you know, whatever. Now, this seems a little weird, right? Like, why did he tell them that he's fleeing from God? But actually, if you know anything about human nature, this actually isn't that strange because have you ever noticed how people always want to confess things to you that you don't even ask them? I was out soul winning the other day and I walked up to this lady out soul winning with my soul winning partner. And I, you know, offered her the tract and said, hey, we're from faithful word Baptist church. And, and she's like, oh, I'm not interested. I, you know, I don't have time. Just no interest. Just totally blew us off. But then she just told us that she had an abortion and then just started bawling. Like, I don't know. I'm not interested. No, thanks. But, but in the process of telling us no and, and sending us away, all of a sudden she just says, yeah, I had an abortion. And then she just starts bawling and then she just starts talking to us and just going on and on. And then, you know, we ended up talking to her about the gospel. She didn't end up getting saved, but why did she just want so bad to tell complete strangers that didn't ask anything? Oh, by the way, I had an abortion. The reason why is because people like to get that off their chest. Just like that's why the Catholic church is so popular with all their confessional booths. People like to go in there and just tell some, you know, pervert on the other side of that thing. They want to just tell him everything that they've done because they just want to talk about it. They just want to get it out there. You know, the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaketh and we cannot help but speak the things that we've seen and heard. And so people, and if you think about it, you've probably had people confess things to you and you're like, why are you telling me this? Like, I didn't want to know that or I don't want to hear that or what, why? I barely know you and you're just spilling your guts to me like this? So somehow when he got on the boat, he just, he had to tell somebody, he had to say something, you know, about how he's in sin or whatever. But then it says the men were exceedingly afraid. You know what I think here when it says the men were exceedingly afraid, what made them get so scared all of a sudden? When they found out that he's a Hebrew and that his God is Jehovah, that's when all of a sudden they really get freaked out. So when he said, yeah, I'm, you know, yeah, I'm running from God, they just ha ha, that's funny. All right, let's drop the anchor or lift the anchor and let's go. They didn't really, that didn't freak him out when he told them that he was running from God. But what freaked him out is when they find out he's running from the God of the Hebrews and then they see the storm and they see what's going on. I think the, I think these people deep down knew that the God of the Hebrews was different than all their other gods and idols and everything. You know what I mean? There are all these religions out there, there are all these false gods, but you know what? The God of the Bible is unique. The God of the Bible is special and deep down people know he's the true God. He's the real God. Okay, that's why atheists, they, you don't see atheists just freaking out about Hinduism all the time. Right? You know, you know, you know, like, for example, somebody, somebody sent me this, somebody texted me this video of some guy, Ron Reagan. I don't know, I guess this guy is a child of President Ronald Reagan. Who knows what I'm talking about, that video? Is that, is that who that is? Is that his son? That it seems like it, right? Kind of look like him. Anyway, you know, this, this video was going around this week of this guy. He was trying to raise money during the Democratic debate. They had this commercial where he's trying to raise money for this thing called the Freedom From Religion Foundation. Just, just some kind of a charity for shutting down religion in schools or government, just making sure that Jesus isn't mentioned, that the Bible is not mentioned. So it's just this atheist, godless thing. And then at the end, at the very end of the video, he's like, oh, and by the way, you know, I'm not scared of going to hell for all eternity. That's what he literally said. You saw, right? Did anybody else see it except me and him? And I'm glad we've seen this, you know. But basically, he literally at the edge is, oh, and by the way, you know, I'm not scared of going to hell. Why? Why say that? You know why? Because he is scared. I'm not scared of heights. No, I'm not. I'm not scared of the dark. No, not at all. I'm not scared of the bogeyman. You know, there's an infinite number of things for you not to be scared of. Why bring that up? Oh, I'm not scared of going to hell. But isn't it interesting he didn't say, well, I'm not scared of being reincarnated as something stupid. You know what I mean? All of the atheist anger is directed at Christianity. Right? Why did he say, well, I'm not afraid of coming back as whatever scummy, you know, person who's born in like the worst part of India and some dirty slum or something or coming back as some unsavory animal or something, right? No, he brings out hell. And look, he's not thinking about Islam. He's not thinking about Hinduism. He's not thinking about Buddhism. He's not thinking about Scientology or something. You know, I don't care about all the thetans or whatever. You know, he's basically saying, look, I'm not scared of going to the hell of the New Testament. That's what he's talking about. That's what's on his mind. Jesus Christ is where his anger is directed. And I think people know that, you know, the gods of the heathen or idols, the God of the Hebrews, Jehovah God, even back then in the Old Testament had a reputation. I mean, think about it. You know, when they came out of Egypt and when they crossed the Red Sea, when they crossed the Jordan River, that stuff spread. You know, and obviously this is after Jonah. But later on in the Book of Daniel, how many times in the Book of Daniel are proclamations going out to the whole world where Darius and Nebuchadnezzar are sending out these great proclamations to the whole world about the great works of God and everything like that. Obviously, that's after Jonah. But even in Jonah's time, there were prophets of God that traveled. Isaiah traveled. Jeremiah traveled. Right. They went around the world preaching the word of God. And frankly, the preaching is going to be different than the priests of Dagon or whatever. Okay. God's word has power. It always has. And so it's interesting how they already knew he's fleeing, didn't even register. That didn't even click with them. Even when the storm's happening, that didn't click with them until the lot falls on him. And then they ask him and then he tells them who he worships. And then all of a sudden it clicks with them. That's right. That's what he said to us. He'd already said that to us. And they're like, you idiot. What have you done? Right. They said like, what have you done to us? Verse 10. Why has thou done this? For the men knew that he fled from the presence of the Lord because he had told them. Verse 11. Then said they unto him, What shall we do unto thee, that the sea may be calm unto us? For the sea wrought and was tempestuous. And he said unto them, Take me up and cast me forth into the sea. So shall the sea be calm unto you, for I know that for my sake this great tempest is upon you. So again, let's talk about the good attributes of Jonah. At least he cares about other people and says, Hey, I don't want this effect. You guys just kill me and it'll be over. Because he figures that if he gets thrown overboard, he's dead. They're out in the middle of the ocean. Okay. It's a great storm. You can't survive. He's going to be dead. It's going to be over. Okay. So just throw me into the sea. I know it's my fault. Nevertheless, they don't want to do that. In verse 13, they're like, No, we don't want it. We don't want to just kill someone here. Okay. Now, here's what's interesting. Stop and think about the irony of this. Why is Jonah there in the first place? He's there in the first place because he doesn't want to preach the gospel where? Nineveh. Why? This is pre-figuring the fact that the Jews don't want the gospel to go to the Gentiles. They don't care about the Gentiles, right? So Jonah pictures that because Jonah, he's totally fine preaching in Israel, totally fine preaching in Judah, but when he's sent to go to the heathen on the mission field in Nineveh, all of a sudden, he doesn't want to go. He doesn't give a rip about the Gentiles and other nations. But isn't it interesting? God's already working with him here because what's God doing in his life here? God's actually working in his heart, number one, causing him to care about some heathens because he even says, hey, throw me overboard. So all of a sudden now he's starting to learn compassion for people of other nationalities. He's the only Hebrew on the boat. And so he's learning to show compassion on other nationalities by saying, hey, throw me overboard that you might be saved. And then they turn around and show compassion on him. And they say, no, we're not going to do that to you, Jonah. Isn't it funny? The heathen love him. Isn't that ironic when the whole reason he's there is because he hates the heathen. Now he's learning, you know, let me just go. I'm just going to go shut myself up down in my cabin. I don't even want to hang out with you guys. I'm going to sleep. I'm going to bed. He's putting in earplugs, putting the mask over his eyes and everything. He doesn't even know what he thinks happening. So then they care about him and they're rowing hard to bring it to land. So I think, you know, I think God's trying to teach him here is that, you know what, the heathen, they're not necessarily just horrible, all scum. They need to be saved. He's trying to teach him, look, these are human beings. These are people that need the word of God. It's not that they're all just the worst, horrible people. They need to be preached to. They need the word of God. They can be reached. He's not on a boat filled with a bunch of reprobates and haters of God here. I mean, these people are nice people and they want to save them. So they rode hard, the Bible says in verse 13, to bring it to the land. So they're saying, no, no, no, that's the last resort. We're going to try everything we can. They rode hard to bring it to the land, but they could not for the sea wrought and was tempestuous against them. Wherefore they cried unto the Lord and said, we beseech thee, O Lord. And who are they praying to? Their own God? Earlier in the chapter, they're all praying to their own God. Now all of a sudden they're praying to capital L, capital O, capital R, capital D. That's the proper name of the God of the Bible. Now they're crying unto the Lord and they said, we beseech thee, O Lord, we beseech thee, let us not perish for this man's life and lay not upon us innocent blood for thou, O Lord, has done as it pleased thee. So they took up Jonah and cast him forth into the sea and the sea seized from her raging. Wow. I mean, they were already blown away, but now that they've seen this, now, I mean, they already believed that it was God. Now they really believe it's God because they threw him overboard and all of a sudden it stopped. That's an amazing miracle. And so as soon as they throw him overboard, he hits the water and it's like, boom, all of a sudden things calm down. Then the men feared the Lord exceedingly and offered a sacrifice unto the Lord and made vows. Jonah just can't help but get people saved. I mean, Jonah is disobedient. He gets, you know, he gets a bad rap, but he's actually a pretty effective preacher. I mean, even when he's disobeying, even when he's backslidden, even when he's in the wrong place at the wrong time, just people are getting saved all around him. Everything this guy touches turns to soul winning. So anyway, they, I mean, these, now these guys, now they all believe in the Lord. They're offering a sacrifice to the Lord. They're worshiping the Lord. They're fearing the Lord. So, I mean, he turned these people's lives around. Forget Nineveh. This guy's already winning more souls than the average Christian, even when he's disobedient. Okay. Look at verse 17. Now the, and you know what that goes to show by the way, is that even when we get out of God's will, God could still use us. So don't, don't ever feel like, oh man, I'm out of God's will. I might as well just quit completely. Right. You know, I screwed up. I got out of God's will. I might as well just quit. I might as well just throw it down. Look, even if you're going the exact opposite direction of where God wanted you to go, you can still win a soul along the way. So don't ever just totally give up. Don't ever think like, oh, it's too late for me. Look, as long as you're breathing air, if you're a saved child of God and you're alive, God could still use you even in a sinful condition. Now he's going to use you more when you're doing right, obviously, but I'm saying don't ever just fully give up and throw in the towel. Okay. If you're going to get out of God's will, do it Jonah style where you get some people saved along the way. Okay. So that's kind of where we leave the sailors and we never see them again. All right. Verse 17, we're back with Jonah. What happened to him? Right. He, he, he dropped below the water's surface. He got thrown into the water. The storm stopped, but he's gone. I mean, he's sunk. He's nowhere to be seen. Verse 17, now the Lord had prepared a great fish to swallow up Jonah and Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights. Now you say, I thought, I thought it was a whale, you know, whales or mammals are not technically fish. Well, you know, maybe God's just got a little different classification system going on than what you do. Okay. But the Bible does tell us it's a whale because in Matthew chapter 10, the New Testament calls it a whale. Okay. So it's a whale. Now, some people will say, you know, oh, it's impossible for a whale to swallow a human being. This is not scientifically possible. You've heard people say that, right? But here's the dumb thing about that. Okay. Number one, it says he prepared a great fish to swallow. No, did it say, hey, just a run of the mill whale came by and swallowed him. Average whale, humpback whale, you know, blue whale. Okay. But number two, the reason a lot of people feel that this is far fetched is because they don't realize how big whales are. Did you know that a whale is the biggest animal on this planet? See, when we think of whales, we're thinking Shamu and that's a very small whale. That is a tiny whale compared to the big. Look, the biggest animal on this planet is a blue whale. And these things are like 100 feet long. And I don't know if you realize 100 feet, just how long it is. Think about this. That's like higher, think about like a 10 story building or something. Think about like a basketball hoop is at 10 feet, right? And then think of another basketball hoop 10 feet higher. And do that 10 times. That's how long a blue whale is. I mean, it's a blue whale is, I mean, think about how long is a school bus? Not even close to 100 feet. How long? Maybe 30 feet long for school. Okay, three school buses parked end to end. And a blue whale is probably longer than that. Okay. And there are other species of whale that are around that size as well. So there are whales and you know, they get special honorable mention in Genesis chapter one, when it's talking about God creating the animals of and it says in God made great whales. They get mentioned as being, hey, these are some special things that God made. So a whale is huge. A whale is massive. You're like, well, but his throat's not large enough for it. God prepared a whale with a bigger throat, a bigger stomach, whatever with a little living pod in there, you know, where air could get in. But I promise you is uncomfortable being in there. See, he talks about the seaweed is wrapped around his head. Well, let's jump into it. It says that he was there for three days and three nights. Folks, that's 72 hours. Can you imagine how long that is? It's Thursday night. Imagine if Friday night, you know, you went into the whale tonight, Friday night, you're still there. Saturday night, you're still there. Sunday morning, Sunday afternoon, you're still in that whale, right? It'd be till Sunday night that you get out of this whale. So he's in there. He's not eating anything. He's not drinking anything. Who knows what kind of digestive fluids are in there and seaweed. It's nasty. It's dark. Probably the burning from the, you know, some kind of acid or who knows, but whatever. He's in there in darkness, discomfort, no food, no water. That's why the whale pictures hell. Okay. Because it pictures Jesus being in the heart of the earth for three days and three nights. Look what the Bible says in verse one of chapter two. Then Jonah prayed unto the Lord, his God, out of the fish's belly, and said, I cried by reason of mine affliction unto the Lord. And he heard me out of the belly of hell, cried I, and thou heardest my voice. Now, of course, he's not literally in hell. He's in the whale's belly. He's calling it hell because it's a hellish experience. And this is picturing Jesus Christ because his soul was not left in hell, neither did his flesh see corruption. Just as Jonah was three days and three nights in the whale's belly, Jesus is going to be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth. So that's why he's using hell to describe his experience. Verse number three, for thou has cast me into the deep in the midst of the seas and the floods compass me about. He's praying this to God in the whale's belly. All thy billows and thy waves passed over me. Then I said, I'm cast out of thy sight. Yet I will look again toward thy holy temple. The waters compass me about even to the soul. The depth closed me round about. The weeds were wrapped around my head. Now, what does that mean? I heard some Jewish guy criticize this translation where it says the waters compass me about even to the soul. Okay, here's what this is getting at. You know, when you're in cold water, it penetrates you. You know what I'm talking about? Have you ever been so cold that it just feels like the coldness just goes all the way to your inner parts? I mean, just your inner core. You feel that cold that just goes all the way through you. That's what he means here. Okay. He's saying, look, the waters compass him about, but this isn't just an external, I have water on me. It's penetrating him in the sense of he's feeling the cold and the agony and the discomfort of being in the whale's belly, being in the ocean, being in that cold environment. Now, I don't know what the temperature is like in the whale's belly, but I'm sure that this is the penetrating of that water and just that feeling of being wet and soggy. I'm sure at least at first it was cold or whatever the feeling is. It's something that's penetrating him, whether it's cold heat, discomfort, wetness, whatever. It's just like, man, I feel it down to the core of my being. That's what it's saying. So it's actually a great translation. It's a beautiful passage. It's very poetic. It says the depths closed me round about the weeds were wrapped about. And by the way, Jews don't even believe that this story even happened by the way, because they don't even believe anything in the Bible. They think it's all just their culture or something. Christians are the ones who actually take the Bible seriously. Amen. We actually believe in Christ and believe in the God of the Bible. But he says, I went down to the bottoms of the mountains. Now he didn't literally do that, but this is prophetic of Jesus Christ. The earth with her bars was about me forever. Again, that's Christ in the heart of the earth being foreshadowed here. He's prophesying of Jesus. Yet has thou brought up my life from corruption, O Lord, my God. Again, prophesying of Christ. When my soul fainted within me, I remembered the Lord and my prayer came in unto thee, into thine holy temple. They that observe lying vanities forsake their own mercy, but I will sacrifice unto thee with the voice of thanksgiving. I will pay that I have vowed salvation is of the Lord and the Lord spake unto the fish and it vomited out Jonah upon the dry land. What a profound statement. Salvation is of the Lord. What does that mean? Salvation is of the Lord. This is the source. The word of there is referring to the source. Where does salvation come from? Right? Salvation is of the Lord. Okay. He is the source of salvation is not of works because think about that of. Salvation's by faith, but then it says it's not of works, lest any man should boast. Isn't that the same wording as salvation is of the Lord? It's not of works. It's of the Lord. It's Christ's death, burial, and resurrection that saves us not by works of righteousness, which we've done, but according to his mercy, he saved us. Salvation is of the Lord. So again, every book in the Old Testament is pointing us to Jesus and it's pointing us to salvation for whosoever believeth. So chapter three, verse one, the word of the Lord came unto Jonah the second time saying, arise. I mean, nothing's changed here. Just arise, go to Nineveh, that great city and preach unto it the preaching that I bid thee. So Jonah arose and went to Nineveh according to the word of the Lord. Now Nineveh was an exceeding great city of three days journey and Jonah began to enter into the city of days journey. Now again, this is one that's, there's a little bit of debate about, you know, what does this mean? Some people have different opinions about what this means when it says it was a city of three days journey. I've heard some people say when he says it's a city of three days journey, he means it's actually three days away. You know, but that basically Jonah gets there in one day because he's so motivated now that he's just, you know what I mean? He's not stopping for food. He's not taking rest stops. He's going to push through, you know, all day, all night and just get there. I've heard some people say that, but I think if you take it more literally what he's actually saying, he says Nineveh was an exceeding great city of three days journey. It doesn't sound like the three days journey has to do with how far away it is. It sounds like it's a city of three days journey. It makes it sound like basically that the city is sprawling or spread out. Maybe it has a lot of like suburbs or different dwellings that are surrounding it because a lot of times in the Bible and again, you know, this is up for debate because it's not super clear. Different people have different opinions about this. But if you think about it in the Bible, you didn't have these nations that we have today, you know, what we have today with modern nations. That's pretty new phenomenon, you know, where we've got these giant nations of Germany and France and Spain. You know, if you look at history, Germany used to be divided into just scores of little kingdoms, little city states. Greece used to be a whole bunch of little city states. Italy was divided into all these little city states and little parts. Switzerland was all these different Swiss cantons and they all had their own government and everything. So all throughout history and especially in the Bible, you have these city states. And so when it talks about Nineveh being an exceeding great journey or an exceeding great city of three days journey, you could think of like, for example, how long it takes to drive from one side of Tucson to the other. Because you guys don't have a freeway, you know, going east to west. You know what I'm talking about? Man, if you ever have to go from I-10 all the way to like the eastern most part of Tucson, that can take a long time. I remember back when I used to work down here a lot. I mean, you know, if there's traffic and stuff, it could take you an hour and 15 minutes. You know, Tucson's an exceeding great city of quite a journey there. You know, and if you think about if you don't have a car and whatever and suburbs are sprawled out, imagine going from, say, you know, Surprise to where you guys live. We're in Florence, right? Yeah. You know, I mean, think about doing that on foot or something. You know, that it could take three days if you're moving slow, you got stuff or whatever. So it's possible that it's basically saying, you know, he gets one day into it and he begins preaching, you know, once he gets into the heart of it. So, you know, again, it's a little bit ambiguous as to what exactly this means. Those are kind of the two options that you'll hear most people say. Probably it's a big sprawling city, lots of suburbs, different parts that are satellites that are out there. And he kind of gets into the heart of it, a day's journey and starts preaching. And listen to what he preached. He cried, he preaches, he cries and said, yet 40 days and Nineveh shall be overthrown. Now, this is not a very merciful message. He's not saying like, hey, get right with God. God loves you. You know, Jesus saves. I've got good news for you. Because remember, he doesn't have a good attitude. You know, you'd think that there'd be a little bit of positive here mixed in. And, you know, obviously we don't get Jonah's whole sermon. I don't think he just said this one sentence over and over again. Obviously, he's going in there and he's preaching and God's only giving us the gist. God's basically just giving us the key. He's giving us basically the sermon title. We're getting the sermon title, yet 40 days and Nineveh shall be overthrown. We don't know all the preaching that he actually did. But he goes in there and he preaches this sermon and the gist of it was negative. And, you know, he's just saying the city is going to be overthrown. You guys are doomed. You're all going to hell. This place is wicked, you know. So he goes in there and he's just ripping face and preaching hard. And I've heard some people bring up the fact too, they probably didn't look very good after being in that whale's belly for three days and three nights. He's probably looking pretty gnarly. Just even just being in the ocean for three days and three nights. Forget the whale, just being in the ocean for three days, three nights. You know, forget the prunes on your fingers. I mean, that's the beginning. You know, he's just saturated to the soul. Okay. And, you know, he's all burned and starved and whatever. He goes in there and he preaches hard and look at the reaction. Verse five. So the people of Nineveh believed God. So, you know, this guy gets people saved everywhere he goes. He already got the whole ship saved of mariners. Now he goes to Nineveh. People are getting saved. And now not only that, they proclaimed a fast and they put on sackcloth from the greatest of them to the least of them. So putting on sackcloth is something that they would do in the Bible to show their humility as a sign of mourning or humility or sorry we're begging God to help us or we're depressed. People would rend their clothes because look, clothes back then are expensive. They didn't have machines. Clothing is handmade. So when, you know, when the high priest rends his garment or whatever, he's basically destroying something that's valuable to them. Okay. So when people would rend their garment, put dirt on their head and wear sackcloth. You say, what's sackcloth? Sackcloth is basically sack cloth. So have you ever done one of those like potato sack races? Who's done a potato sack race? That's sackcloth. So if you met, it's a burlap sack. So if you'd imagine that and just, you know, cut a hole for your head and cut a hole for your arms and put that on as clothes. That's sackcloth. Now here's the thing about that. It's very rough. It's not, it's not satin and silk and cotton and it's, it's very rough and scratchy and uncomfortable. And is it the style? You know, especially, I mean, it's ugly. It's ugly. It's dirty. It's uncomfortable. It's basically a sign of this is how I feel. I'm going to look how I feel. Okay. On the inside, you know, cause you're grieving, you're, you're upset. So basically these people are heartbroken before God. I mean, they're contrite before God. They want to make things right with God. And so they put on sackcloth from the greatest, even the least that they proclaim a fast. So the government of Nineveh is proclaiming fast. Did you know the United States government has proclaimed fasting before in the United States? Even they've proclaimed that, Hey, we need to pray as a nation. You know, we're talking like 100, 200 years ago, of course, but they'd proclaim like, Hey, we need to pray as a nation or we need to fast as a nation and we need to get a hold of God. You know, in 2019, Jonah would have been banned from even going to Nineveh. He would have been like, all right, God, I'll do it. I'll go to Nineveh. And they're like, sorry, you're deported. I just got banned from New Zealand last night. So yeah, it's on my mind. So this is country number 34 for me trying to collect them all. But anyway, so they put on sackcloth and it says in verse six, for word came under the king of Nineveh and he arose from his throne and laid his robe from, I mean, this guy's got the fancy royal garment. You know, you picture the purple robe with the white and black fur collar around it, you know, and he's got the fancy things. I mean, he gets, when he hears this preaching, when he hears the word of God, he takes off his robe, he covers him with sackcloth and he sat in ashes. I mean, this is the king. He's sitting in some gold throne. He's got all his fancy garments, the scepter, the rings on his fingers, you know, the big gold necklace and everything. I mean, this guy gets up and just takes all that off, puts on sackcloth, goes and sits in the dirt. He's putting dirt on his head like, woe unto us. Now you wonder, like, how could this sermon just reach the whole nation? Because when that, when the leadership gets right, I mean, it's, that's gonna, you know, people are gonna see that. That's gonna be shocking. I mean, can you imagine if the president of the United States, you know, whether it was Obama or Trump or Bush or, you know, whichever the president from recent history, just imagine any of these guys just saying like, you know what, I've heard the preaching from Faith Ward Baptist Church or, you know, somehow, or I heard the preaching from, you know, Pastor Roger Jimenez, or I heard Brother Corbin Russell's sermon on Sunday morning, you know, down in Tucson, you know, somehow it would get to the president. And what if the president would literally just say, we are, our nation is so wicked and we need to get right with God and he's putting dirt on his head and he's ripping off his, his power tie and everything. And, and basically, you know, he's begging God for mercy and we need, you know, we need to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. We need the word of God. You know, we've got to stop the sodomites. I mean, just all of a sudden he's just like, just does a complete 180. I mean, that would really impact a lot of people, especially if it was a popular president. You know, obviously our country is extremely divided. There's like a hardcore polarization where no matter who's president, half the people love him and half the people hate him. All right. All the conservatives hate Obama. All the liberals hate Trump, you know, but, but imagine a place, there are a lot of countries in the world though, where, where the leader, everybody kind of likes him or he's just kind of popular. Or, you know, you think about popular presidents in the past that had a really high approval rating. Imagine if a guy like that just got right with God and started preaching the Bible and just started doing fireside chats with the nation where he's just like ripping face and preaching the Bible and talking about how we need to repent of all this wickedness. That's what's happening. And you know, it's not every day that a king puts off his royal garments and goes and sits in ashes, sits in the dirt. I mean, look, ashes are something that gets you dirtier than anything. I mean, you could go roll around in the dirt. You know, it's even roll around the ashes. You're going to need more of a shower. I mean, ashes stain you. Am I right? I mean, this guy is rolling around in soot and ashes and just getting dirty and putting on sackcloth and saying, hey, everybody needs to put on sackcloth. We are wicked. Our nation is wicked. We need to get right with God. God's going to destroy us. Let's pray for mercy. Okay. And so when he does this, he caused it to be proclaimed and published through Nineveh by the decree of the king and his nobles saying, let neither man nor beast, herd nor flock, taste anything. Let them not feed nor drink. He's like, no, we're going to fast. Our pets are going to fast. Animals are going to fast. We're not going to feed the dog. We're not going to feed our cattle. We're going to take away the cat's water dish. We need to get right with God here. Okay. Let man and beast be covered with sackcloth. He's like, put sackcloth on the animals. Now, this is unprecedented. Nowhere did God command this. Nowhere did God say, hey, your animals need to fast. Your animals better be in sackcloth. You know, your animals need to get right with God. That's foreign description. But remember this guy, he doesn't know the Bible. I mean, is this guy a Bible believing Christian? No, he doesn't know the Bible. He's a heathen. But when he hears the preaching of God's word, God does a work in his heart and he ends up through the power of God's word, through the power of the spirit of God, he ends up just saying, we need to get right. And he's just like, what do I do? You know, look, okay, everybody's in sackcloth. Now what? Put it on the animals. You know, what do we do here? Right? Now you can see why God backs off from his threat. I mean, when God sees that, I mean, he's not going to destroy that. And this goes to show you, because was there a lot of hope in Jonah's message? Jonah's messages is 40 days. He didn't say it might be overthrown. He said 40 days is going to be overthrown. But here's the thing. Even when the message seems hopeless, even when it seems like, Oh, God's so mad, God will never forgive us. God can never fix it. Look, try, try, because who knows if the Lord's going to be merciful, right? Because God is a very merciful God. I mean, he lets a lot of things go. And so he says, cry mightily unto God. Yea, let them turn everyone from his evil way and from the violence that's in their heads. This isn't just praying and fasting and putting dirt on our heads and putting on sackcloth. He's also saying, look, the sin is going to stop. Abortion is going to stop. You know, the wickedness, the fornication, the adultery, the drunken. He said, it's going to stop. We're getting right. We're getting right with God. And he says, who can tell if God will turn and repent and turn away from his fierce anger that we perish not. And God saw their works that they turned from their evil way. And God repented of the evil that he had said that he would do unto them and he did it not. So here's the thing. When it comes to the salvation of the soul, it's just a personal thing between you and the Lord. If your faith is in Jesus, you're saved. If your faith is not in Jesus, you're doomed. Right. But when it comes to salvation of a nation, there has to be works. Okay. And I've heard it said this way. Nations can't be judged in the next life. They're judged in this life. You know, so when we talk about our salvation, that's just by faith. But here's the thing. Even if you believe in Christ, what if you believe in Jesus, but then you go on continuing to live a sinful life? What's, I mean, are you just going to get away with it? Did Jonah get away with disobeying God? No. So the point is, once you believe in Christ, if you continue living in sin after you believe in Christ, yes, you're still going to heaven, but destruction will come in this life. Whom the Lord loveth, he chasteneth, that scourges every son whom he receiveth. Imagine this, what if everybody in Arizona got saved, but they all just continued living? And obviously never will everyone get saved because that's a personal choice that people have to make. But I'm saying theoretically, let's say everyone in Arizona got saved, but they all continued living their lives exactly the way that they're living them right now. You know, there's still abortion, still drunkenness, still fornicating. Would that cause Arizona not to be judged? I say it would probably get judged sooner. Because God holds Christians to a higher standard than he does the heathen. Christians should know that. Christians are held to a higher standard. They're more accountable. So in order to spare judgment here, in order to get the city not to be destroyed, it's not enough to just believe in their hearts. Now that's going to get them to heaven. Believing on the Lord, believing the word of God, that's getting them to heaven. They're getting to heaven based on verse number five. The people of Nineveh believed God. That's what's getting people to heaven is those who believed. Probably wasn't every single person that even believed, obviously. But the people who believed are going to heaven. But when it comes to actually stopping the physical destruction that's coming, they have to actually clean up their act. If we want to get blessed in this lifetime, we have to live right. So when it comes to getting to heaven, it's all by faith, not of works. But when it comes to getting blessed in this life, you got to do the work. So a lot of people are like, oh, I can do whatever I want and go to heaven, then why would I even serve God? Well, there's a lot of reasons to serve God. Because we love God. Because we want to do what's right. Because we love other people. Okay. But here's a good reason. Because we don't want God to punish us on this earth. I mean, who here wants to just live a messed up, horrible life where everything goes wrong, and then go to heaven? I mean, I'd rather live a blessed life and then go to heaven. Let's get the best of both worlds. Amen. So these people, yeah, they believed God. Great. But in order to get the city spared, that's where the sack lots got to come out, the prayer, the fasting, turning from their evil ways, turning from their sins. And turning from your sins is work. Right? God saw their works that they turn from their evil way. That's what turning from your evil way isn't just believing, it's actually doing works. That's why it's so disturbing when people say, oh, in order to be saved, you got to turn from your sins. It's like, well, basically what we're saying, hey, in order to be saved, you got to do works. Because that's work to turn from your sins. It's not easy to turn from your sins. It's work. It's effort. And God calls it work. But this is the part, I think, you know, let's pretend you've never heard this story before in your life. Because I know some of you have, and maybe some people are hearing it for the first time. I'm not going to ask for a raise of hands. I don't want to single anyone out. But let's say you're hearing this story for the first time, or if you can remember back to when you first heard this story, or when you first read the story. You know, I remember reading this as a kid. You know, the story is pretty basic up to this point. Like, it's not hard to understand, is it? Pretty simple. Jonah disobeys God. God gets mad. He gets punished. He gets it right. He preaches to the people. The people get saved. You kind of expect them to just kind of live happily ever after. You know, like, what if we just omitted chapter four? Like, if this is the end of the story, it would just be like, a pretty basic story. Like, okay, yeah, great. Cool. I mean, still be a great book. Chapter four is the most interesting chapter because chapter four, the story just takes a really weird turn. I mean, chapter four, verse one is the most shocking part of this whole story. Because I mean, you'd expect you go there, you preach, everybody gets right with it. You'd think Jonah would just be like, man, I was so stupid. Why didn't I come here sooner? Where's the next country on the list that you're going to wipe out, God? I think I can turn it around. I mean, okay, we've done Nineveh. Let's head for Babylon. I mean, wouldn't you think any, you know, I mean, a normal preacher you'd think, right? I mean, if this is you, put yourself in the story, right? All you guys out there, put yourself in the story. Wouldn't you be like, how do I get to Babylon from here? Let's go down to Egypt. Let's take this on the road. Let's take it to the Philistines. Let's take this to Moab. You know, let's go. Isn't that, wouldn't that be the normal reaction of like, this is the greatest thing of all time. And literally, this is one of the greatest revivals in the entire Bible. Okay. But it displeased Jonah exceedingly. It's kind of hard to understand that, right? It's like, Jonah, why don't you just shut up and go with the flow? You already got swallowed by a whale. I mean, is this guy stubborn or what? It displeased Jonah exceedingly, and he was very angry. That's a pretty shocking verse. Verse two says, and he prayed unto the Lord and said, I pray thee, O Lord. And what's funny, and then he doesn't pray anything. This is sort of like those kids who raise their hand in school and say, hey, I have a question. And then they just like, tell you something. Who knows what I'm talking about? They just kind of want to show the teacher that they know stuff. Isn't it true that Nineveh was the capital of Assyria? Okay. Yeah. Just checking. You know what I'm talking about? They just have some like, or they have some arcane fact about, you know, whatever. Isn't that what they do? Like they raise their hand and like, you remember that kid. There was one in every class. He, I pray thee, I pray thee, was not this my saying when I was yet in my country? He's like, oh, Lord, let me pray to you and let me tell you, let me tell you something here. Wasn't this my saying when I was yet in my country? Now he's trying to go back and act like he was right or something. He's trying to go back to chapter one and be like, I don't know. I got a bad rap. Wasn't this my saying when I was yet in my country? Therefore I fled before unto Tarshish. For I knew that thou art a gracious God and merciful, slow to anger and of great kindness and repentance thee of the evil. Now look again, there's so many things in the book of Jonah. The book of Jonah is really deep. And I know I've already said this a couple times tonight, but this is another one that can kind of be taken two ways. There's a lot of things in the book of Jonah where there's like two different interpretations. Here are the two ways you could take this. Okay. And I'll tell you which one I think is what he's getting at here. And a lot of this stuff, you know, a lot of times when there are two ways to take it, some things in the Bible kind of have a double meaning, you know, it's kind of like both are there in a sense. It's not always a one or the other. The Bible is really deep and you can read it a few different ways. And that's why when you keep reading the Bible, you keep learning more and you're going through different things in your life. Different things are jumping out at you. The Bible is a living book. And so when we read this, one way that you could take this is, hey, isn't this what I said when I was in my country, how merciful and slow to... That's why I went to Tarshish. You could take it as, I thought that you'd be merciful to me and go easy on me. You know, here you are, these wicked heathens, and you forgive them, but then I do one little thing wrong and you're just all over me. I thought you're merciful. Yeah. It's funny how merciful and kind you are to everybody else. I spent my whole life preaching. I spent my whole life serving you. I've been serving you for decades. And then these people just all of a sudden just, you know, they got saved all of a sudden and now they're just so cool. And by the way, this is also the exact same teaching in the story of the prodigal son. Because remember, Jonah is picturing the Israelites not wanting the Gentiles to get saved. And that's the same thing that the prodigal son story. The older brother, man, I've been serving you my whole life. This guy's been with harlots and now all of a sudden we're killing the fatted calf for him. Well, the Gentiles are wicked. Now all of a sudden they're getting all the epistles written to them? Epistle to the Romans? Are you serious? So basically, the other way that you could take this is, well, I knew that you're a merciful and a kind God. And I knew when you were sending me to go rip some face in Nineveh, that you were actually sending me there to get the people saved. And I don't want them to get saved because I don't like them because they're wicked. And I wanted them to get, I wanted San Francisco to break off and go into the ocean. You know what I mean? It's like, I wanted it to get wiped out. And so, you know, you could kind of take it either of those two ways. All right, let's take a vote. Who thinks he's saying, hey, that's why I fled to Sarsus because I knew you were a merciful God. Like, I didn't think you were going to just come down on me that hard. Who believes that's the interpretation? And who thinks he's saying, hey, I knew they were going to get saved. That's why I didn't even want to go. Well, that's overwhelming. All right, so well, there we go. The eyes have it. So there we go. I can't argue with that. I mean, you know, that's how we decide doctrine around nonsense. That's not how we decide doctrine. But anyway, this is one of those things that there's kind of a few different ways to understand it. But basically, he's saying, you know, isn't this what I said what happened? That's why I fled. This is the last thing I wanted for Nineveh to be saved. Therefore, now, O Lord, verse three, take I beseech thee my life from me, for it's better for me to die than to just kill me. Just kill me right now, God. Why don't you just kill me? This is how things are going to be. And this is a bad attitude. Verse four, then said the Lord, doest thou well to be angry? And then look, God's being soft on him. Because we got to remember, Jonah's a great guy. Remember, I started that out at the beginning of the sermon. This guy's been serving God for years. This guy's been preaching faithfully. He's done a lot of great things. He's just going through a weird period right now. Okay. And remember, everywhere this guy goes, he gets people to say he was a good preacher. I mean, he preached good on that ship. He preached good in Nineveh, you know, God's using him. I mean, he's a mighty man of God. God uses imperfect people. And so we see here, he's just like, just kill me now. Verse five. So Jonah went out of the city. This is the funniest part. I love this part of the story. I remember reading this as a kid and just loving this part. So 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 shadow till he might see what would become of the city. He basically sets up a little observation booth and says, I'm going to sit here and I want to see this city get destroyed. I mean, he wants it to be another Sodom and Gomorrah where fire is raining down. It's just so funny. God basically spares the city. People are getting right with God. They're getting rid of the sin. And he sets up an observation booth to just sit and wait. You said 40 days it's going to be destroyed. I'm going to sit here and wait. Because when that 40 days is up, I want to see this place get wiped out. So he sets a little camp out after saying to God, kill me, please. He sets up a little camp and he says, all right, let's see this. I want to see this thing. I want to see what's going to happen. So he sets up this booth and he sat under it in the shadow till he might see what would become of the city. And the Lord God prepared a gourd and made it to come up over Jonah, that it might be a shadow over his head to deliver him from his grief. So Jonah was exceeding glad of the gourd. So God's still being merciful to Jonah here because Jonah, he makes a booth, but it wasn't that great of a booth. And so therefore God makes this gourd. When it says gourd, when we think of the gourd, we're thinking of the fruit of the gourd. Basically it's the plant that the gourd would grow on is what it is, what is meant here by the gourd that's growing. Because obviously a big heavy gourd isn't going to be held up in the air providing shade. But it's the leaves of the plant. If you've ever planted gourds, they have big leaves. So basically this is like a big plant with big leaves. And God makes this thing to grow up quickly and provide shade for him so that he can watch the show. That's not going to happen. So the gourd comes up and then he's exceeding glad of the gourd. He's like, oh man, this is great. I love this gourd. Not necessarily giving God the glory, but he likes the gourd. But God prepared a worm. When the morning grows the next day and it's smote the gourd that it withered. So God makes this plant grow up to make a nice shady booth for him. And then God creates a little worm. God's preparing a lot of special stuff. He prepares a special whale. He prepares a special gourd that grows really fast. Big leaves, good shade. And then he prepares this evil little worm to go in and just eat up the gourd. So it just destroys the thing. All the leaves have holes in them. It's all withering. So he prepares this worm. When the morning rose the next day, it smote the gourd that it withered. And it came to pass when the sun did arise that God prepared. When God prepares stuff for Jonah, it's negative. God prepared a vehement east wind and the sun beat upon the head of Jonah. So first he makes this gourd. Here, let me give you some shade here, buddy. Let me give you a nice little gourd. Give you some shade. Then he sends this evil little worm to eat the gourd, to eat the leaves and make the plant wither up. And then he just turns up the heat. He basically just makes it the hottest possible day. The sun beating down. It's basically just a normal day for us in Arizona summer, right? Oh, I forgot it's 10 degrees cooler down here. You guys love to brag about that. He just scorches him with great heat so that now he's just baking in the sun. The sun is just beating on him, just super uncomfortable, super miserable, no shade. And the sun beat upon the head of Jonah that he fainted. He's passing out. He makes it so hot that he gets heat stroke and passes out. He falls over. I mean, he's dehydrated. He's heat sick. And he fainted and wished in himself to die and said, it's better for me to die than to live. You know, I mean, the heat is getting to him. And God said to Jonah, doest thou well to be angry for the gourd? And he said, I do well to be angry, even after death. Stop asking me that. Yes, I'm angry. I'm right. I do well to be angry, even after death. I'm not going to back down, he's saying. And then God says to him, then said the Lord, thou has had pity on the gourd for the which thou has not labored, neither mayest it grow, which came up in a night and perished in a night. And should not I spare Nineveh that great city, wherein are more than six score thousand persons that cannot discern between their right hand and their left hand and also much cal. Here's what he's saying. Look, you didn't make that gourd. I did. You didn't create that gourd. You didn't plant it. You didn't water it. You didn't do any of the work. And then you're all upset when it's gone. He's saying, I created those people, every single person in Nineveh. And he says here, more than six score thousand people, right? So we're talking about a hundred and twenty thousand people. And he's saying, each of those people, I formed them in the womb. The hairs of their head are all numbered. These are my creations. These are people. These are human beings that I formed and fashioned in their mother's womb that I love, that I care about. I don't want them to get destroyed. You're more upset that your stupid plant died. I care about these people and I don't want them to be destroyed. And he says, should not I spare Nineveh that great city, wherein are more than six score thousand persons that cannot discern between their right hand and their left hand. Here's what he's saying. These people don't know anything. They don't know the Bible. They don't know the word of God. They're heathens. But part of that is just their ignorance. Because when they heard God's word, they responded to it. When they heard the preaching, they responded to it. Why hate these people? Why would you hate these people who haven't heard the gospel? They haven't heard the word of God. When they heard it, they got right. So why would you just sit there and think you're better than them? Because you happen to be born in a Christian nation. You happen to be born in a place where you grew up with the word of God. Hey, these people are still precious people even though they didn't have that privilege. You love your stupid gourd? Well, guess what? I love them. That's what God's saying to them. He said, you didn't labor for that. Shouldn't I spare Nineveh that great city wherein are more than six score thousand persons that cannot discern between their right hand and their left hand. And look, this last phrase, I think it's clear there's a lot of humor in this book. I mean, unless I'm just interpreting it 100% wrong, I'm getting a lot of humor out of this. I mean, the first time I read this, I was cracking up. Even just as a little kid, I was reading chapter four about the gourd and the worm. I mean, it's funny. It's a funny story. I think everybody who reads this story finds a lot of things in the story funny. I mean, chapter one's funny. Chapter four is funny. Chapter three has some funny stuff. I mean, it's a very entertaining story. It's very funny. I think that probably the funniest thing is the last phrase there. And also much cattle. Now look, I'm sorry if you don't agree with this, but it's the truth. God loves people, not animals. Okay. Because, you know, when you study the Bible, you know, in First Corinthians nine, he talks about how the scripture said, thou shalt not muzzle the ox that treadeth out the corn. And it says, Does God take care for oxen? Or sayeth he it not altogether for our sakes. For our sakes, no doubt this is written. He's saying, even the animals in the, that are protected under the law, like, you know, when you read the Mosaic law in Exodus and in Deuteronomy, where it seems like he's protecting animals, where he'll say, you know, oh, when you come upon the robin's nest, you know, don't disturb it. Or, you know, don't see the kid in his mother's milk. Don't muzzle the ox when he treadeth out the corn. He's saying those things are written all together for our sakes. They're actually, God cares about people. Those rules are there for the benefit of people. God wipes out a lot of animals in the Bible. Remember the global flood? You know, he didn't pick like the two righteous of each animal. Okay. He pretty much just drowned all the animals and he just took two of each animal. Why? For man's benefit. You know, God, we're to have dominion over the animals of this world. Some people have tried to use this verse as a proof text, like God cares about animals. But, but I think this is one of the funniest verses in the Bible. And look, if you love your pets, I'm not, I'm not against your pet. Okay. I'm not trying to be down on your pet. Love your dog and pet it and, and, and love it and laugh and cry with it for all I care. I'm just, I'm just saying, it's sad though when people start putting animals above people, you know, remember when Jesus to save one man sent 2000 pigs off a cliff? 2000 pigs went sailing off a cliff to save one guy. That's, that's a Bible story, right? So that should tell you right there. You know, did you know that the animals are not going to be included in the rapture? Right. They're all gonna be left behind. Facing all the carnage. Right. You know, so yeah, left behind. You know, somebody should make a movie. Okay. Somebody should make a movie of left. It's gonna be called left behind the other, you know, the other left behind. And basically, you know, those movies that are like from animals perfectives. Is there, I don't know if I've seen this one, but well, wasn't there a movie called like homeward bound? Is that what it's called? I don't know if I saw it. Maybe I saw when I was a kid. I've seen movies like that, but maybe they can make like a homeward bound movie where like what it's like for like a family dog, you know, his whole family's Christian. They all go up in the rapture. I'm joking. But anyway, you know, he's going through all the plagues and everything, right? Okay, I got to finish so we can get to the eg's here. But look, let me explain to you the great humor of this verse. I think this verse is hilarious. Remember, get the context. Remember in chapter three, how they put sackcloth on the animals, which is very silly. Never commanded in scripture. It's very strange how they're making the animals fast. The animals can't drink water. The animals are putting on sackcloth. So I think that God, you know, is basically referring back to that. Like, you know, hey, how can I not spare this great city? You know, and what about that cattle that's down there wearing sackcloth? Am I supposed to wipe them out? I mean, they didn't need any food. They didn't drink any water. They had the sackcloth on. So this seems to be the final, you know, coup de grace here at the end of the book, and it's hilarious how this verse ends with that. And then we don't even, and then you just, that's it. It ends in a question, you know, hey, shouldn't I spare the city? You know, there's 120,000 people down there and then cattle, you know, a lot of cattle down there. Remember, they got right with God too. It's a joke. I firmly believe this is a joke because there's a lot of funny things about that. But the point of the story, he leaves it open-ended. Jonah just told us, I'm not going to get right on this, you know. So we don't know, did he ever get right? Probably not because the way it looks is Jonah never got this right. I mean, did the Jews ever fix their attitude? And that's who he's picturing here, you know, except that he's actually saved and right with God and everything like that. But you know, one of the, there are a lot of great lessons here. Amen. I mean, it's a great book. It shows us that God uses flawed people, imperfect people, and it shows us when we do wrong, we're going to pay the price. God can use us if we do right. You know, we need to preach the gospel. We need to love the lost. Amen. Don't get, you know, sometimes I do get around Christians where I go out soul-winding with them and I get the feeling that they don't love the lost sometimes. You know, you feel like they just look down on and disdain everyone that they talk to. You know, we've got to love the lost. We need to love the lost and realize that, you know, we would be just like them. If we didn't grow up in a Christian home or if we hadn't been preached the gospel, if, you know, we would be horrible people too. And so we need to love and care about the lost and not go down this road. But you know, one of the, one of the greatest lessons of this is just how cool the Bible is. What a story. I mean, is that not one of the greatest stories ever? And you know what? The Bible is filled with great stories like that. So deep. And look, how many people who've heard this story a bunch of times, there was some aspect of the sermon tonight where you're like, oh, I hadn't really thought about that part of the story. Yeah. I mean, every time you read it, right? Even just tonight, preaching the sermon right now, during the sermon, I saw some things I've never noticed. I can't even count how many times I've read the book of Jonah. And yet I learned some new stuff tonight. Just going through it. The Bible's that deep. And you know what, children? I want to encourage you children to read your Bible. I read this when I was a little kid. I can remember it. I can picture my childhood bedroom sitting on the carpet, reading the book of Jonah and laughing my head off and thinking, this is a great book. Hey, that's what you ought to be doing. You want God to bless you? You want to grow up and be a good Christian? You got to start reading the Bible now. And don't just only read the Bible when somebody makes you read the Bible. Go to your room, shut the door, open your Bible and read it. And you know what? You say, well, I'm little. I need to be reading Donald Duck and Mickey Mouse or whatever. But guess what? There are some fun things in the Bible. And you could gravitate toward those when you're a kid. I remember when I was a little kid, I'd go straight for the David and Goliath story. I'd go straight for the miracles of Jesus. I'd go straight for the book of Acts. Go straight for Jonah. You go straight for the book of Genesis and read about these stories with Moses and Exodus and things like that. Learn to love the Bible. Amen. And be someone that God uses greatly. Don't just waste your life. Don't be a nobody. Do something big with your life. Amen.