Sunday Sermon host critiques theological minimalism and dispensationalism while analyzing Jonah chapter 1, contrasting Phoenician sailors' genuine repentance with Jonah's pride-driven bitterness. He rejects Sigmund Freud's view that religion merely copes with fear, arguing instead that encountering Yahweh intensifies awe rather than diminishing it. The speaker condemns modern pastors for refusing to preach to despised groups like rural Americans or racists, urging ministers to abandon self-preservation and faithfully proclaim the gospel to all people for God's glory. [Automatically generated summary]
So, for those of you who are joining us for the first time right now, we're in between books of the Bible.
The plan is, Lord willing, to begin a series through the book of Ezra.
We have completed a series through the book of Joshua.
And during this interim period of time, we're taking an assortment of various texts, each Lord's Day having a primary text of Scripture, but focusing on the grace of God, focusing on the gospel that we're saved by grace through faith in Christ alone.
We finished our series through Joshua, focusing on what it looks like to conquer the land as the people of God.
Ezra will focus on what it looks like to rebuild the ruins of a land that had been conquered previously by God's people, but because of faithlessness to the covenant, a land that God's people had eventually been rejected from because of their failure.
And so those are the focuses with Joshua and Ezra.
But in the meantime, in between, we're focusing again.
Primarily on the gospel of grace.
Our text for today is going to be Jonah chapter 1.
If you would, please join me now in standing for the reading of God's word.
I'll read the text for us in its entirety.
When I finish reading the text, I'm going to say, This is the word of the Lord, at which point I would appreciate very much if you would respond by saying, Thanks be to God.
One final time, our text for this morning is Jonah chapter 1.
The Bible says this Now the word of the Lord came to Jonah, the son of Amittai saying, Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and call out against it, for their evil has come up before me.
But Jonah rose to flee to Tarshish from the presence of the Lord.
He went down to Joppa and found a ship going to Tarshish.
So he paid the fare and went down into it to go with them to Tarshish, away from the presence of the Lord.
But the Lord hurled a great wind upon the sea, and there was a mighty tempest on the sea, so the ship threatened to break up.
Then the mariners were afraid, and each cried out to his God.
And they hurled the cargo that was in the ship into the sea to lighten it for them.
But Jonah had gone down into the inner part of the ship and had lain down and was fast asleep.
So the captain came and said to him, What do you mean, you sleeper?
Arise, call out to your God.
Perhaps the God will give a thought to us that we may not perish.
And they said to one another, Come, let us cast lots.
That we may know on whose account this evil has come upon us.
So they cast lots, and the lot fell on Jonah.
Then they said to him, Tell us on whose account this evil has come upon us.
What is your occupation?
And where do you come from?
What is your country?
And of what people are you?
And he said to them, I am a Hebrew, and I fear the Lord, the God of heaven, who made the sea and the dry land.
Then the men were exceedingly afraid.
And said to him, What is this that you have done?
For the men knew that he was fleeing from the presence of the Lord, because he had told them.
Then they said to him, What shall we do to you that the sea might quiet down for us?
For the sea grew more and more tempestuous.
He said to them, Pick me up and hurl me into the sea, then the sea will quiet down for you.
For I know it is because of me that this great tempest has come upon you.
Nevertheless, the men rode hard to get back to dry land, but they could not.
For the sea grew more and more tempestuous against them.
Therefore, they called out to the Lord, O Lord, let us not perish for this man's life, and lay not on us innocent blood, for you, O Lord, have done as it pleased you.
So they picked up Jonah and hurled him into the sea, and the sea ceased from its raging.
Then the men feared the Lord exceedingly, and they offered a sacrifice to the Lord and made vows.
And the Lord appointed a great fish to swallow up Jonah, and Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights.
This is the word of the Lord.
All right, please be seated.
Let's go ahead and dive in.
By way of introduction, just for those of you who probably everyone is familiar with the story of Jonah, at least in a general sense, but for those of you who don't know some of the context and background, hopefully you'll find this helpful.
In your notes, I've written the following Scripture informs us that Jonah served as God's prophet during the days of King Jeroboam II.
King Jeroboam II was an idolatrous and immoral king.
However, God, in his mercy, told Jonah to prophesy.
To the nation, that the territorial boundaries of Israel were going to be expanded.
God was going to give territory back that had been taken generations earlier by the Syrians.
So Jonah prophesied an expansion and it came to pass.
In light of this, Jonah experienced great public success in the economic and military glory days of the northern kingdom.
He was one of the very few popular prophets.
How do we know this?
2 Kings?
Chapter 14, verse 25 tells us He restored, that is, God restored the border of Israel from Labo Hamath as far as the Sea of the Erebah, according to the word of the Lord, the God of Israel, which he spoke by his servant Jonah, the son of Amittai, the prophet who was from Gath Hefer.
So Jonah was one of the few popular prophets ever in the history of Israel.
Why was he popular?
It's very likely that Israel actually liked this particular prophet.
Why?
Because he prophesied success.
He prophesied increase.
He prophesied wealth and prosperity, that the borders of Israel would be expanded.
Most of the prophets, Jeremiah, the weeping prophet, Ezekiel, Isaiah, many of these prophets, most of the prophetic message that the Lord gave them to deliver to Israel was a message of conviction.
It was a message of calling out the sin in Israel, correction.
But in the case of Jonah, at least the first half of his prophetic tenure, the Lord was speaking through Jonah to the nation of Israel, and the message was a message of blessing.
It was a message of increase.
And so Jonah was likely one of the very few prophets that Israel actually liked.
And Jonah probably enjoyed being appreciated.
I'm sure any prophet would like that, that, you know, the people that the Lord sends him to, to carry out and speak to them a particular message, that the people actually appreciate the prophet giving that message.
And this was Jonah's experience as prophet for a time.
But the problem is that eventually things began to change.
So in the early years of Jonah, he's prophesying expansion.
Now, notice there are a few things, a few parallels that you could think of with our culture and our, you know, Political climate today, Jonah is prophesying blessing from the Lord, but during a time where there's actually a wicked and idolatrous king in Israel.
So the king in Israel at this time is not a good king.
This is not a blessing that is coming directly as a one to one ratio for the immediate current righteousness and faithfulness of Israel.
That's not happening.
This is a blessing that God prophesies and God brings it to pass through Jonah at a time when Israel is being faithless, not faithful.
So Israel is actually in disobedience to the Lord underneath the leadership of their disobedient and idolatrous king.
And yet, because of God's mercy, not as a reward for Israel's faithfulness.
But God's mercy, despite Israel's faithlessness, God still prophesies instead of judgment, increase and blessing, and it does in fact come to pass.
I think of, you know, just in my lifetime, seasons in our nation such as the 80s and the 90s.
Right?
That, hey, the Lord's blessing us.
Right?
The economy is doing pretty well, things are ramping up, the borders seem to be increasing.
You've got free trade across the globe.
We can make gidgets and gadgets for pennies on the dollar.
Now, granted, nobody's going to have jobs 20 years later, but we can do it now.
The Lord's blessing us.
And the blessings that we experienced in the 80s and 90s in these United States of America, certainly like the blessings of Israel in the time of Jonah, were not coming because of our faithfulness.
The 80s and 90s, the decisions.
That were being made, the things that we were doing is exactly what brought us here.
But God was merciful.
And temporally, God continued to bless us in some tangible ways, even as we were choosing to be rebellious and disobedient against the Lord.
And now we're all having to pay the piper.
Our children will have to pay the piper.
And we'll see if God would be merciful enough for our grandchildren to even have a country.
You've heard me say it before, and I'll say it again.
When it comes to certain investments, I'm.
Not qualified or willing or courageous enough to give you any kind of opinion as a pastor.
You can go seek some financial, professional, you know, consulting in that regard.
But I will give you this little piece of advice.
When it comes to the grandkids, it might be worth, you know, beginning to save up for the Zambia Fund or the Uganda Fund.
That's not where I would want to live today.
Don't misunderstand.
The heritage of a Christian foundation currently, as it rests today, Is much more potent than the beginning little seedlings or sproutlings of a future Christian nation.
But if we continue in our rebellion and continue to erode that foundation, that Christian heritage, and there continues to be faithfulness in other parts of the world, and those little seedlings and sprouts are watered and tended, then eventually there will be orchards somewhere else, and here we will only have a desolate wasteland.
We are not promised.
Indefinite blessing.
Blessing comes ultimately through obedience.
Temporal blessing in this life is the fruit of obedience.
Eternal blessing, speaking of salvation, also comes through obedience, but in that case it comes to the perfect, finished obedience of Christ, which is received by grace through faith in Him alone.
But when it comes to earthly temporal blessing, that does come about as obedience.
God is clear that He will not be mocked.
A man will reap what He sows.
If we sow, Good things, faithful things, obedient things, and our children will experience and reap a temporal blessing in this life.
We see that even in the case of children and their own actions.
The fifth commandment is the first commandment that comes with a promise.
Children, honor your father and mother that your days may be long in the land that the Lord your God is giving you.
And we see this not just in Exodus chapter 20 as some kind of Old Testament, no longer relevant commandment and promise.
That's not how we read the Bible.
The Old Testament is just as real today as it was in the days it was written.
But if there was any question regarding that, well, we can look at Ephesians chapter 6, where the Apostle Paul cites the commandment.
And without equivocation, he also cites the promise as though the commandment is still in full effect and as though the promise is just as good in this New Testament time as it was under the old covenant with Israel.
The Apostle Paul doesn't say, Hey, children, obey your parents, for it is right.
And at the end of the day, it really doesn't matter what you do because everything is eternal and temporal things don't matter at all.
And you know, if I said that you would be blessed in this life because of your obedience, that would be the prosperity gospel, and John Piper would get on to me.
Says the Bible never.
That's not what the Apostle Paul says in Ephesians 6.
Instead, he says, hey, this is the first commandment with the promise.
Commandment's still in effect.
The promise is still good.
You want to be blessed temporarily in this life?
Well, be faithful.
Be obedient.
Now, again, we have to be able to speak in theological categories as Christians.
That's part of the problem, is that everything has been conflated.
And this is due to theological, what I would call theological minimalism.
Most of the problems that we're dealing with today, as they stem from the church, and they do, it's due to the church's.
Laziness, theological laziness.
What we determined was this we determined that doctrine divides.
That became the mantra.
And we didn't want to be divided.
And so what we thought was, well, what if we could just somehow limit and narrow the doctrines that actually matter enough to hold?
And we'll do all this in the name of the Great Commission, right?
Because dispensationalism and premillennialism have done a great number on the church over these past 150 years.
And so, in light of that, we began thinking, well, we're really just working towards.
The imminent and relatively soon return of Christ.
And if there's anything that we can do as it pertains to us as Christ's people to speed up the clock, as it were, it would be to evangelize the nations.
That we would go to the four corners of the earth, that all would hear the preaching of the gospel, and that that would usher in the return of Christ.
And one of the great inhibitors to evangelizing the nations, fulfilling this mandate to global missions, is the fact that the church is so divided.
And one of the main reasons that we're so divided is because we can't agree on doctrine.
You got some guys wanting to dunk babies.
You got other guys who don't want to dunk babies.
They do the same thing in their baby dedications, they just remove the water.
It's really kind of semantics, but still, it's a big deal, you know?
And then you've got some people that are holding to the sign gifts of the Holy Spirit being active today, and others who are cessationists and they don't believe in the Holy Spirit at all, right?
That would be the way to straw man it.
You know, they believe in God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Bible.
They've replaced the spirit, you know, that would be kind of the rhetoric that's used.
And so, you know, so you're divided on all these different issues, and we could list doctrine after doctrine after doctrine after doctrine where Christians fall in different places.
Priorities When It Comes To Doctrine00:06:33
So, how do we speed up the return of Christ?
If you're a dispensational, and hear me, I'm not speaking of the historic premillennial position, but a relatively novel dispensational premillennialism, then you typically believe that Christ's return will be relatively soon and that it is destined by God and his sovereignty that things will get progressively worse until Christ returns.
And there's really nothing that you can do about that.
That is God's design, it is His will.
Things will get worse.
In fact, at some level, to work towards things improving is to work against God Himself.
And so, if you think things are going to get worse and worse, then really the best thing you can do for your children and your children's children is to make sure that they don't have to be here.
And sadly, many dispensational premillennials did precisely that.
They forewent having children.
They read things like Matthew 24 and the Olivet Discourse and thought that that wasn't something that Jesus was speaking that.
That would be actually fulfilled in 8070.
This generation will not pass away.
But instead of taking Jesus in a literal sense, this actual generation, within 40 years, these things will come to pass.
They took it as more of an analytical and metaphorical sense that this type of generation, there will always be these kinds of people.
And so what Jesus is saying will take place within a span of 40 years actually might take place within a span of 2,000 years.
And what is one of the things that Jesus warns of?
Woe to those women who are with child.
In those days, right?
Things will be terrible, and they were.
They were in 8070, quite terrible.
But if your perspective is that this is still the times that we live in, then it's just a small hip jump and a skip, you know, over to hey, it might be best for us not to have children at all.
And especially if you begin to shift your hermeneutics even more and think that the Great Commission has somehow not come alongside the cultural mandate, but rather replaced the cultural mandate.
Well, we're not going to have children.
Will have spiritual children by doing the work of an evangelist.
And I could go on and on and on and on and on to talk about how we arrived in our current cultural moment.
But this is, make no mistake, how we arrived.
The theology of the church does actually impact culture and politics.
This is undeniable.
But in all of this, the point, the main point that I want to make is theological minimalism.
If you have a great goal and you think things are going to get worse, the best thing that we can do is either forego having children or make sure the children we do have don't have to live through this great tribulation that's coming.
Well, the only thing that we can do towards that end is speed up the clock.
As much as it depends on us, ensure that Jesus returns more quickly, that he doesn't tarry any longer.
And as far as we can tell from the scripture, the best way, the only way that we can speed up the clock is making sure the gospel gets out.
And it'd be a lot easier for us to finance and resource.
The global mission mandate, preaching the gospel around the world, if we didn't disagree so much.
And how can we stop disagreeing?
Well, instead of having 200 different doctrines, what if we narrowed it down to four or five?
This is Billy Graham.
This is his entire ministry, summed up in a nutshell.
And then what happens because of theological minimalism is we begin to believe that the Bible is inerrant.
We don't begin, we continue to believe in the inerrancy that is the authority of Scripture.
And to be fair, we also believe not only the authority of Scripture, but the sufficiency of Scripture.
But it begins to beg this implicit question what precisely is the Scripture sufficient for?
And the answer becomes salvation and salvation only.
So the Bible is still authoritative.
The Bible is also still sufficient.
But the Bible is no longer sufficient for life and godliness, but it is only sufficient for those things which are eternal.
The Bible is not sufficient.
It's not that it's not authoritative, it just doesn't.
Address.
It's not relevant.
It's not sufficient for economics or for politics or for culture or for science or for medicine or any of these things.
These are things that God has left as a blank canvas.
And there is an implicit neutrality when it comes to these things.
They're not inherently righteous or inherently wicked.
And we just use the reason of man and common sense.
And the best that we can do, preach the scripture for salvation, Pastor, but stay out of everything else.
Don't let these other things come into the pulpit.
Don't address these things in your preaching because the Bible doesn't speak to them.
These are things that people need to make those decisions on their own.
And so then we begin making those decisions on their own.
And now we don't know the difference between a boy and a girl.
That's how it works.
Theological minimalism.
Now, none of that is to negate another concept, which is entirely true that is, theological triage.
There are priorities when it comes to doctrines.
Justification by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone, is a doctrine of more importance than, for instance,.
Mode of baptism, head coverings, sighing gifts of the Holy Spirit, whether or not they're still in operation today.
Those doctrines matter, but not at the degree, not the level of justification by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone.
So you don't have to be a theological minimalist to still do theological triage.
So I'm not saying that all doctrines matter equally.
But I am saying that all doctrines matter.
And so I believe that in many ways, and you can make this argument not just with our country, but with other countries, and not just a time period of the 80s and 90s.
That's how I began this particular rant in the sermon.
But not just that time period, and not just this place, this particular country.
But you can make this argument of Jonah type prophets in multiple different places in multiple different periods of time.
What's the headline of the story?
What's the big idea?
The Irony Of Jonah And Nineveh00:10:47
You have a prophet who's saying, blessing.
Instead of curses, increase instead of judgment.
And he's preaching these things, and not as a prosperity gospel preacher would, not in a heretical sense.
He's not preaching these things as lies.
He's preaching these things, and they are, in fact, for that particular place and time, true.
They're true.
Notice Jonah is not a false prophet.
Jonah is not liked by his contemporaries and accepted by them because he's preaching positive things.
In a deceitful manner.
The positive predictions that he's making, notice they come to pass.
He is not a false prophet, he is a true prophet.
He's just an unusual, rare prophet, and the fact that he actually gets to make predictions that are positive for Israel when pretty much every other prophet makes predictions that are negative.
And both prophets are true prophets.
They're simply saying what the Lord is saying, and they're saying these things, speaking for God faithfully.
But Jonah lived at a very unique time where God actually had blessing.
That he intended to do to Israel, and he intended to do this blessing to expand their borders, to enrich Israel in many temporal ways, despite, again, not because of any goodness in Israel, but actually precisely despite the fact that Israel's king at the time was wicked.
And the people of Israel were following in the likeness of their king, rebelling against the Lord.
So, this is the setting, the backdrop for the story of Jonah that many people don't know.
Let's continue now.
In your notes, I've written the following Jonah's death wish.
Isaiah had previously prophesied that one day the Assyrians would successfully invade Israel.
Jonah would have been familiar with this prophecy.
As a prophet himself, he knew the prophecies that had come before.
He had seen the scrolls, he had read them, committed these things to his heart and his memory.
In Jonah's day, the Assyrians were just beginning to make their pre invasion attacks into the northern kingdom of Israel.
And.
As God's sovereignty would have it, Jonah lived in a northern town.
So it is entirely possible that he had personally witnessed some of these attacks.
He may have even seen the Assyrians brutally kill members of his own family.
And of course, here's the hook the capital city of Assyria was Nineveh.
Jonah was not afraid of Nineveh's potential rejection of his message if he obeyed the Lord and went to Nineveh and preached as he was called to, but rather, On the contrary, precisely opposite, Jonah was afraid of Nineveh's potential repentance to his message.
Let me say that once more.
Jonah's reluctance, or we might call it downright refusal, to obey the Lord and go to Nineveh and preach the message that God had assigned to him, Jonah's refusal to go to Nineveh was not out of a fear that his message would be rejected by the Assyrians, but a fear that his message would actually result in the repentance.
Of these Ninevites.
What I'm saying is this Jonah didn't want to go to Nineveh because he wanted them to perish under the judgment of God.
Because he hated them.
And he hated them because in his lifetime, so you have two big periods of Jonah's prophetic tenure, his career as a prophet in Israel.
The first half is going really well.
You could argue it's going better than any prophet in Israel has ever experienced.
I mean, all the prophets in Israel ultimately are put to death.
And most of their prophecies are going around saying, hey, all these other guys are false prophets.
They're saying, peace, peace, when there is no peace.
I've got a true sermon, I've got a real message from the Lord.
He's going to destroy all of you, right?
I mean, that's a hard sermon to preach, especially in Israel, a place that was known as a rich lineage, a rich heritage of killing prophets.
But Jonah, the first half of his ministry, is saying, Hey, guys, I've got a prophetic word.
It's peace, peace.
And I'm actually a true prophet.
And he was right.
He wasn't lying.
God's going to actually increase our borders, Israel's going to expand.
We're actually going to benefit.
We're going to be blessed by God.
Right?
Hip, hip, hooray.
Three cheers for Jonah.
I have no doubt Israel probably appreciated him.
But then as we get into the second half of his ministry, The pre invasion attacks from Assyria directly to the north began to ramp up.
And Jonah lives in the northern tribes, in the northern kingdom of Israel.
And so he begins to experience firsthand some of the first pre invasion attacks of the Assyrians, a barbaric people who are known even by archaeologists.
They've confirmed this, as well as, of course, biblical scholars and theologians, that the Assyrians, one of their habits, traditions, if you will, was.
To fillet the victims, their war victims, with other tribes that they went to war against, fillet them alive and take their skin and hang it on the outside of the walls surrounding their cities.
The Assyrians were a barbaric people.
And what you find later on in the book of Jonah, a short book that if you haven't read it recently, I strongly commend it to you, only four chapters in length.
But one of the things that you'll find is that the king of Nineveh calls his whole city, all his countrymen, to repentance.
They do, in fact, listen to the message that Jonah eventually preaches to them once he eventually arrives in the providence of God.
And when the king of Nineveh calls his men, his nation, to repentance, The specific sin that he mentions by name, he says, Let everyone turn from their wicked deeds and the violence which is in his hand.
The only sin mentioned specifically is the sin of physical violence.
And that is to say, again, that the Assyrians, Nineveh being one of the capital cities of the Assyrians, they were specifically known for all kinds of treacherous evil and wickedness, but especially the evil of physical violence.
And not merely because they made war on other nations.
There are conditions that would set the stage for something such as just war theory.
But these guys aren't fighting necessary wars and wars that must be fought because all diplomatic attempts have failed.
But these guys are torturing the people that they conquer just for the fun of it.
They are violent.
And so Jonah knows this.
And if we're not careful, it's easy for us to enter into.
The story of Jonah thinking Jonah didn't want to go to Nineveh because Nineveh might kill the prophet.
Here's the irony if Jonah was afraid of being killed as a prophet, going to Nineveh is actually a pretty good gig.
Because if you're a prophet trying to avoid death, the one place you don't want to go to is not Nineveh, it's Israel.
The best bet you have of getting killed as a prophet is going to the people of God, they'll kill you.
Killed Jesus and killed all the prophets before him.
So Jonah actually has a better chance if that's his only concern.
If his concern is just saving his own physical life, if it's merely physical self preservation, well, then go to Nineveh.
I mean, even guys who hang the skins of their victims on their walls statistically have a less chance of turning on a prophet of God and killing him than the people of Israel.
I mean, the people of Israel have made a profession out of killing prophets.
No one does it more often or better, more consistently than them.
Now, Jonah was not hesitant or refusing, rebelling against God, to go to Nineveh to preach this message of repentance because he was afraid that his message would be rejected by the Ninevites and therefore they would reject his message and turn on him and kill him.
No, he was afraid that they would actually accept his message.
That they would in fact repent.
And then Jonah knew this about the character of God.
He knew that God is a sucker for repentance.
That God, who is thrice holy, and as the scripture testifies, by no means will pardon the wicked, is quick.
Not slow, slow to his anger, but quick in his mercy, in his kindness, in his forgiveness.
Relenting and sending disaster quickly for those who repent.
Jonah knows this about the Lord.
How do we know that Jonah knows?
Well, because he tells us, he tells specifically God himself in his prayer.
He says this, and he prayed to the Lord and said, Oh Lord, is this not what I said when I was yet in my country?
This is why.
Jonah's going to tell us exactly why he chose to go to Tarshish, the opposite direction from Nineveh.
This is why I made haste to flee to Tarshish.
For I knew that you are a gracious God and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love and relenting, here's the key, from sending disaster.
Therefore, he follows it up, and he says this at least three times throughout the narrative.
Therefore, now, O Lord, please take my life from me, for it is better for me to die than to live.
What Jonah is essentially saying, and I'm smiling because I just.
I can identify with Jonah.
Jonah As A Petty Drama Queen00:06:13
Jonah is petty.
Let the listener understand.
I can identify with Jonah.
I mean, there's just moments where I look back and I'm like, man, I was kind of being a drama queen.
Like, I was pretty petty.
Right?
I should have just let that one go.
Like, is there any hope for me?
And I, okay, there is Jonah.
He was a prophet, he was a preacher.
Okay, all right.
Or I'll look at Charles Spurgeon.
Charles Spurgeon, I mean, he struggled with just dehabilitating anxiety and especially depression for large swaths of his ministry, large seasons.
There was a moment in Charles Spurgeon, the prince of preachers, is what he was known as.
A moment in his ministry where, I mean, he was one of the only guys who was a pastor of a mega church in his time.
I mean, most churches were smaller, even just at a physical level.
This is before you have audio and microphones and You know, amplification of these kinds of things.
And so churches tended to be smaller, you know, maybe a couple hundred people.
Many churches may have been even smaller than that, 50 people or so.
But Charles Spurgeon, he was the pastor, senior pastor of the London Metropolitan Tabernacle, his church.
And it was a little bit over a thousand people, is what most historians say.
And he personally had it as his habit that for anyone to enter into membership at his church, he had other elders and ministers that would serve alongside him.
But he would meet personally when it came to membership for anyone in the church.
So he sat down personally, each family, as new people would come to the church, and would interview them and preach to them the gospel, make sure they had an understanding of justification by grace alone, through faith alone, and Christ alone, ask them about their marriage, all these things, catechizing the children, and then welcome them into membership.
And he did this with a congregation of over a thousand people.
But there was one particular Lord's Day where, as he was preaching in a stadium style facility, One of the seating, the balconies collapsed and dozens of people died.
And it haunted him the rest of his life.
And there were many other things that happened in his life as well, but that was a big one where he could hardly preach anymore.
He was so devastated by that and then also contemplating, warring within his own soul.
Am I in sin?
Is this a judgment from the Lord?
What's going on?
Should I stop preaching?
I mean, if you preach and as you're preaching, you know.
15% of the congregation dies, you know, you start to think maybe this isn't the career for me.
You know, I mean, I want to save people's souls, and here I am killing people, you know.
And so Charles Spurgeon was struggling.
And Charles, you know, Charles Spurgeon was a bit of a drama queen.
Most guys who've written, you know, biographies on him, he was deeply and profoundly emotional.
Some of the best preachers throughout history were deeply emotional.
Deeply.
Jonah was probably a great preacher, is what I'm saying.
But he was also a bit of a pill.
Great preacher, but really testing the Lord's patience.
And by God's grace, I'm not trying to brag.
I think I'm a great preacher.
And if you want someone who's sanctified to disciple you in patience, and you're a woman, talk to my wife.
Great preacher, great saint.
We both bring things to the table.
We both have our gifts.
Jonah was a bit of a drama queen.
Three times, kill me.
Better for me to die than to live.
Now, let's hone in a little bit more here, though.
What is he actually saying?
He's saying, This is why I refuse to obey you.
You told me to go to Nineveh to preach repentance.
I did not.
I went the opposite direction.
And what I'm quoting here is Jonah chapter 4, verses 2 and 3.
So this is toward the very end of the story.
After Jonah witnesses the repentance of Nineveh.
And Jonah is now saying to God, this is bold.
This is where Jonah is like, okay, by God's grace, it's not nothing in Joel, but by God's grace and sanctification, I think I might be a little bit better than Jonah.
Jonah's saying this to God in a prayer.
He's saying, this is why I didn't want to obey you and go to Nineveh and preach a message of repentance, because I knew they'd repent and I knew you would fall for it.
I knew that you would save them.
I wanted to see the fire and brimstone.
I wanted to see Nineveh destroyed.
I mean, Jonah literally pitches a tent up on a hillside, sticking around after his mission is already completed.
He's already obeyed the Lord.
He's free at this point to go back to Israel, his home country.
But he sticks around just in case he might get to watch this city get wiped off the face of the map.
And he's rooting for it.
He's rooting for it.
And when God doesn't do it, when God chooses to relent in sending disaster and show mercy instead, Because of Nineveh's repentance, Jonah literally says, This is what I told you.
I told you this all the way back in my own country.
This is why I made haste to flee for Tarshish instead of obeying you and going to Nineveh, because I know your character.
Imagine this dialogue with the Lord.
This is what I knew was wrong with you, God.
You've got a lot of great qualities, but let me list a few of your weaknesses.
Merciful, slow to anger, abounding in steadfast love.
Not a good look, Jonah.
That's just not a great prayer.
But that's where he's at.
That's how petty he is.
And as Connor was leading us through the liturgy just a moment ago, that's how bitter he is.
That's how bitter he is.
Bitterness Born From Pride And Arrogance00:03:19
Now, notice one thing that's important for us to recognize when it comes to that particular sin of bitterness a few things I might say.
One, bitterness has the potential, as the author did, the Hebrews instructs us to defile many.
So, bitterness is not a sin that will simply.
Affect yourself, but it will affect others.
It is an infectious sin.
It is a sin that will quickly spread and disease a whole crop.
A whole congregation can ultimately be destroyed by one root of bitterness.
That's one aspect of the sin of bitterness.
But another is this often we attempt to assuage our own consciences by justifying our bitterness, saying, The reason I'm bitter is because of the great atrocities that have been committed against me by others.
And there's a partial truth in that.
Most people who are bitter, it is in part due because of the sins of others committed against them.
But others sinning against you, in and of itself alone, if that's all that takes place, it is not enough to produce bitterness.
Bitterness does not come merely by being sinned against by others, it is always a mixture of being sinned against by others coupled with bitterness.
Pride.
Hot spirits, I believe it was Matthew Henry who once said this.
Hot spirits come by high spirits.
And what he's saying is that to be angry, right?
And that's the question that the Lord asked Jonah.
Do you do well to be angry?
Pro tip almost always the answer is no.
Do you do well to be angry?
And what Matthew Henry, in his commentary on the book of Jonah, is getting at is.
That high spirits are what lead towards hot spirits.
Hot spirits speaking to anger, to be hot in your anger, the opposite of the character of God.
Not slow to anger, but quick in your retaliation, quick in your indignation.
And what Matthew Henry is saying is that in the case of Jonah, hot spirits are not merely produced by others harming you, but others harming you, coupled with your own high spirits, that is, lofty pride, arrogance.
There are people who can be sinned against in terrible ways and yet not grow bitter.
Because although they were wronged terribly, they are people who do not think highly of themselves, not more highly than they ought.
They are people who do not possess these hot spirits because they possess, by the grace of God, low spirits.
It's not just being sinned against, it's being sinned against with pride.
It is the prideful man.
Who, when sinned against, will quickly ignite in anger towards those who sinned against him.
Low Spirits Versus Quick Indignation00:06:23
This is Jonah.
And Jonah had, make no mistake, he had in fact been sinned against.
And not just that someone didn't invite his kid to their birthday party.
No, he had been sinned against by the Assyrians, ramping up their pre invasion attacks into the northern tribes of Israel.
And likely, if not family members, at least acquaintances or friends that he knew had been.
Taken captive or even harmed or brutally murdered by the Assyrians.
Not to mention the Assyrians, they also ruined Jonah's perfect prophetic record.
His whole profession, his whole career had been flawless.
God's gonna expand this border.
God's gonna give you a house.
He's gonna give you a car.
And it's actually true.
This is a prosperity preacher's dream.
Binnihan would kill for this.
You know what I mean?
This is like, I'm gonna tell people.
That if they do this, they'll be rich, and for the first time, I won't be lying.
Right, this is a nice gig.
And then all of a sudden, oh, but that other prophet that came before me prophesied some bad things, like Assyria taking over us things, and that's now coming to pass.
Oh, man.
The Assyrians are hurting people that I love.
This golden age of the 80s and the 90s, right?
We're all making just tons of money.
Settling our kids and grandchildren, you know, their future, you know, on a raft down a river.
But, and now we're going to have to pay the piper.
Isaiah's prophecies are now coming to pass.
Ah, those Assyrians.
Can't stand them.
I had a good thing going, they ruined it.
Jonah was sinned against, but he wasn't only sinned against, he was arrogant, he was prideful, he was petty.
He probably, like many of us, had an idol of comfort and personal pleasure.
All these things are going on behind the scenes.
Continuing your notes now, I've written this.
The sailors on this Tarshish bound ship were most likely Phoenicians, a people who were notorious for their sailing experience and capabilities.
These men were well acquainted with storms at sea and recognized that this was no ordinary storm.
Verse 5 of our text says that the men were afraid, and each cried out to his own God.
And they hurled the cargo that was in the ship into the sea to lighten it for them.
However, the ship was not lightened, the whole weight still remained.
The body of the prophet continued to weigh down the ship, not from the physical weight, but from the burden of sin, for nothing is so heavy as sin.
These Phoenician sailors are crying out to their gods.
It's not like they've never sailed rough waters before.
And we always read biblical literature and think that everyone who's come before us was some Neanderthal, primitive person that doesn't know anything.
And that's simply not true.
They understood storms, they understood the seas, they understood navigation and all these different things.
And they knew that something here was going on that was.
Above their pay grade.
This was no mere storm.
This was supernatural.
That's why they began crying out to their deities, but none of their deities answered, for they are all false gods.
And so they turned to one extra guy who's on the ship that they have yet to consult because he's sleeping.
They turned to Jonah.
Continuing your notes, I've written this in verses 7 through 10 of our text the sailors cry out, Come, let us cast lots.
That we may know on whose account this evil has come upon us.
So they cast lots, and it did no good because it's random.
No, it helped.
It worked because God's sovereign even over the dice.
They cast lots, and the lot fell on Jonah.
Then they said to him, Tell us on whose account this evil has come upon us.
What is your occupation, and where do you come from?
What is your country, and of what people are you?
And he said to them, I am a Hebrew.
And I fear the Lord, the God of heaven, who made the sea, right?
It's a little bit relevant, who made the sea and the dry land.
Then the men were exceedingly afraid.
Now, notice verse 5, what we saw earlier with the storm itself, before this encounter with Jonah and finding out that he's a Hebrew, a servant of Yahweh on the run in disobedience and rebellion.
Before all of that context, with just the storm itself, the men were afraid.
Verse 5 said, We were afraid, and each cried out to his God.
But now, in verses 7 through 10, the text says, Then the men were exceedingly afraid.
The fear has increased.
At first, the sailors had feared the storm and the potential loss of their lives.
Now they feared the judgment of God.
They feared no longer the power of creation, but the wrath of the Creator Himself.
These men felt how fearful a thing it is to fall into the hands of the living God.
A brief word about Sigmund Freud, who is in hell to the praise of God's glorious justice, a wicked man.
A terrible man.
And a man, along with Darwin and others, who sought to disprove God.
These individuals, Karl Marx would be another, they recognized that the greatest strength and fabric of society was Christianity.
Fear Of God's Wrath Leads To Repentance00:14:39
That had to be taken out if they were going to be able to control society.
Sigmund Freud, one of his arguments for atheism, one of his arguments against Christianity, and against any religion for that matter, was this.
He said that believing in a deity, a god, was just a result of primitive people that couldn't understand, but not just that they couldn't understand.
It's not just in regards to their knowledge, but primitive people who were powerless.
And so, what do you do?
If there's a threat, right?
Pestilence, a disease, a plague, or a storm, and you're powerless, and you don't have the technology that we have today, You're living in the kind of house that can just be blown over.
These kinds of natural disasters, when they occur, you don't have modern medicine.
You don't have all this different technology that would work as a bulwark to protect you from the disaster.
And whenever a disaster does take place, your life is threatened.
You've seen disasters in the past, and many people that you love have been casualties.
Well, what do you do in a time period like that where you have few defenses against nature?
Natural disasters.
Well, if the threat that you're experiencing is a person, a person can be appeased.
Not always.
A person can be cruel.
They could be someone who refuses to engage in dialogue and diplomatic attempts.
But an army has a general.
You can speak to him.
There can be conditions for surrender.
Even an individual person who's trying to mug you in a back alley, God forbid, you can still say, please don't hurt me.
I'll give you whatever you want.
You can appeal to some kind of, as wicked as they might be, some kind of human nature underneath.
You can reach for some level of compassion.
But how do you plead with a storm?
How do you plead with the bubonic plague?
Well, you don't.
You can't.
And so, what people did in manufacturing religion out of nothing, according to Sigmund Freud, was they tried to take nature's greatest disasters and personify them by placing within them a deity.
Especially when it comes to Norse mythology or Roman Greco mythology, these kinds of things.
You have different gods for different, you know, the ocean, Poseidon.
You know, or a god of this storm over here, Thor, was lightning.
And now we have a god, now the storm, just like an army or a mugger, we can cry out to someone.
We're not stronger than the storm, but maybe we can satiate the personified storm, the deity within the storm.
We can make some kind of sacrifice, some kind of plea bargain, so that the storm would relent and not destroy us.
Now, the reason why Sigmund Freud fails in this argumentation. Is because it does not account for the triune God.
And the reason it doesn't account for the one God who truly exists is because what we see throughout Scripture time and time again is that when people encounter some kind of judgment of the Lord, like a storm, and then realize that Yahweh is the God behind it, they don't go from being afraid to being calmed, but from being afraid to being even more afraid.
See, if that was the psychology, if that was the goal, was to put a God within the storm so that we don't have to be as afraid of the storm, well, then what you would want to do is put a God within the storm that's not scary, but the Christian God is.
The Lord is to be feared.
And even Jesus says, Do not fear those who can harm the body, kill, destroy the body, but after doing so can do nothing more, but rather fear God in heaven.
Who, after destroying the body, also has the power to condemn your soul to hell.
He is a fearful God.
He is a living God, terrible in his judgments.
And this is precisely what the Phoenician sailors experienced.
It's indicative, it relates to what the disciples with Jesus experienced.
Jonah is sleeping on the bottom of the ship.
Jesus, likewise, is asleep on the boat.
The disciples wake him up and say, Do you not care that we are perishing?
They are afraid.
But in that gospel narrative, when Jesus speaks and stills the storm, even with the disciples, the same concept is there.
It says that the disciples go from being afraid of the storm to being exceedingly afraid of the one who has authority over the wind and waves.
Jesus scares them more than the storm does.
So, too, Yahweh scares these Phoenician sailors more than the storm does.
So, it's a common or classic L for Sigmund Freud.
All right, that should have come as a surprise.
He's always wrong.
Continuing, in verses 15 through 16 of our text, we see that the sailors picked up Jonah and hurled him into the sea, and the sea ceased from its raging.
Then the men feared the Lord exceedingly, and they offered a sacrifice to the Lord and made vows.
This is significant.
The last thing we'll focus on the men actually feared the calming of the sea the most.
So they fear the storm.
Then they fear the God in the storm or over the storm with authority, Jonah's God, the triune God, and then the storm ceases.
And this would be the moment for the fear to cease along with it.
Typically, once the threat has been neutralized, then the terror would go away along with it.
But here in Jonah chapter 1 is where we find these sailors most afraid, not least afraid.
The men actually feared the calming of the sea and the ceasing of the tempest most of all because it proved that Jonah's words were true.
There is a God who created all things and will hold each man accountable for his sin.
Now, since the ship was a large vessel and bound on a long voyage, the men had livestock on board, which they offered as a sacrifice.
And in order to further display their gratitude, the sailors made vows before the Lord.
Now, notice this they're afraid of the storm, they're extra afraid when they realize that the storm actually has a deity behind it controlling.
The storm, and then they're even more afraid when that is confirmed by the storm ceasing.
Because now they no longer have the storm as an immediate threat to their physical bodies, but they know that everything Jonah's just said about this God is true.
And although this immediate storm in the physical sense has ceased, there is another storm brewing.
There's a storm of judgment, and that one day they're going to have to stand before this God who causes storms and has authority to.
Cease and still the storms, and they've been pagans their whole life, worshiping false gods instead of the true God.
So the fear doesn't go away when the storm ceases.
If anything, it increases.
And so what do they do?
They make vows and sacrifices to the Lord after the threat has been neutralized.
Now, think about this in terms of genuine repentance.
It's one thing when you're sick to cry out to the Lord for healing and mercy.
And let's say, As a specific example, let's say you're sick in a particular kind of way.
It's the kind of sickness you brought upon yourself.
Right?
Maybe in a past life, in rebellion, in sin.
And you are kneeling, calling upon the gods, kneeling before the porcelain throne.
I'll never do it again, making vows.
Right?
But it's one thing to cry out and make vows and ask for mercy in the midst of a storm, in the midst of pain, in the midst of fear.
It's another though, when everything's all done, when your pleas for help have actually been granted and answered, to then turn to God and say, I make a vow.
Not I'm making a vow in this moment, if you help me, I'll never do this again.
But no, you have helped me and I'm going to live another life.
You have helped me and I'm going to be faithful to you.
That's what's happening with these sailors.
These pagan sailors, they get it.
They're making vows, and I think there's no other way to read this but bona fide, genuine salvation.
They fear the Lord.
They now make vows to the Lord, not just to get out of the immediate threat, they've already gotten out of that.
They're making vows for the future, for the rest of their lives, to live in fidelity to the Lord.
They make sacrifice to the Lord, knowing that's an implicit acknowledgement that they know they're sinners, that they've sinned against the Lord in a host of ways, but if nothing else, in their idolatry.
The fact that, you know, five minutes ago they were calling out to pagan gods.
So they're making sacrifices, seeking atonement, making vows, renewing commitments.
Meanwhile, the Hebrew prophet is still in rebellion.
Still.
Jonah chapter 2 is the only portion in all four chapters where he appears to repent, and I would argue that even then he doesn't.
Jonah chapter 2 is Jonah's prayer.
He cries out to the Lord, but I don't believe it's actually the prayer from the belly of the fish.
He talks about the waters going over his head.
I think that it's actually the prayer that Jonah prays in the ocean or the sea as he's sinking.
In the waters.
And even that is a kind of prayer that's precisely the opposite of what the pagan Phoenicians pray.
See, Jonah prays as he's drowning that God would save him.
And once God does, we pick back up with Jonah 3 and 4, and he's got the same bad attitude again.
Doesn't want to obey, wants Nineveh to be destroyed.
He's complaining about a plant.
And God's like, You care about the plant, really, Jonah?
The plant?
If you care about the plant, Plant, what about 120,000 souls that don't know the difference between the right and left hand?
And I don't think that's moral ignorance.
I think God is literally speaking that in Nineveh there's 120,000 children, so young that even if you're mad at their moms and dads for the violence in their hands, their children haven't committed any violence towards Israel.
And there's also much cattle.
The cows didn't do anything wrong.
This is how the story of Jonah ends, right?
If you care about the plant that I sent a worm to destroy, and it's not really just your own comfort, your own idolatry, You just care for innocent living things?
Well, you should probably care for the innocent living 120,000 kids in Nineveh or care about the cattle in Nineveh, but you don't.
Because at the end of the day, you're not concerned about justice.
You're not mad because I'm not being just and punishing Nineveh because of their crimes.
You're just, you're angry for yourself.
This has all been about your comfort, whether it's the plant causing shade, whether it's you getting to make positive prophecies and them actually coming to pass and being liked by your contemporaries.
Whether it's you having to travel to Nineveh, whether it's you in the belly of the fish, at every level, Jonah, the only thing you care about is not my glory, it's not my justice, and it's not about innocent living creatures like plants or cows or kids.
What you care about is you.
Do you do well to be angry, Jonah?
And the rhetorical, implicit answer is no.
Now, I do believe that Jonah is in heaven and that he did, in fact, repent because somebody had to write the book.
And it's not contained in the book, his repentance.
But what is contained is remarkable.
Everyone in the story of Jonah repents except Jonah.
The Phoenician sailors repent.
And I think it's real repentance.
Nineveh repents.
We know that's real repentance because Jesus even says the men of Nineveh on that day will rise up and judge you, speaking to Israel.
Ninevites will be your judges, Israel.
Everyone repents in the story of Jonah except for Jonah.
And Jonah, in many ways, we could say, as a prophet, an Israelite prophet, he represents the church.
And more particularly, not just the church, that would be like Israel, but Jonah being a prophet of Israel, pastors.
And that's the last relevant overlap that I see in our day and age.
That right now, by the grace of God, because of judgment being poured out, There are a lot of people, and a lot of them unsuspected.
Some surprise conversion stories, you might say.
There are a lot of people repenting.
There are a lot of people, I believe, by the grace of God, who are being converted and born again.
They're seeing God's judgment.
They're seeing the error of our ways.
They're seeing the wickedness behind the veil is being revealed.
And there are people who are waking up and coming to Christ, recognizing we've got to repent.
We've got to call upon the Lord.
But there's one character in our current story, like the story of Jonah, who still doesn't seem to get it.
I mean, you've got bona fide racists repenting and coming into the kingdom of heaven before evangelical pastors.
And then you've got a bunch of other people who are called racists but actually aren't, aka pretty much everyone in America.
But the one group of people who seem to be so stubborn and will not relent, sadly, are the prophets.
The people who should know exactly what time it is.
They've been given a message, namely this book, to preach and to preach safely.
You don't get to ad lib.
And yet, continually and consistently, there's a refusal.
God says, Go to Nineveh, they'll go to Tarshish.
God says, Hey, I'm doing a work of revival and repentance among people on the right.
Go to Nineveh, go to the right.
We'll be friends with the left.
We want the high seats.
Go over there.
There's a bunch of people in flyover country.
You know the country bumpkins you've made fun of for the last 30 years?
They're getting saved.
Go over there.
But why do that when Russell Moore and David French can go hang out with The Atlantic and The New York Times?
Now that's the moment that we're in.
Jonah's the one guy who doesn't get it.
And notice, the biggest way to miss the story is that Jonah doesn't get it not because he's afraid for his life.
Jonah refuses, deliberately will not allow himself to get it because he's afraid of God's mercy saving the kinds of people he's spent his whole career despising.
When you're a minister, a prophet of the Lord, Who spent your whole life, your whole preaching career, hating on the Assyrians as those bad, dirty people?
Right?
Fly over country, blue collar, country bumpkins, white people, rural people, uneducated people.
You spent your whole career talking down, punching down on that type of person.
And then God says, I want you to go and preach to that city, to that people.
I actually plan to save them.
And yeah, there are sins that they've committed, but I'm going to relent in sending disaster and send mercy instead.
And you're like, wait, the Phoenicians, though, I think that's a better crop right there.
I think there's more potential for revival among the Phoenicians.
And God just laughs at, I'll save them too.
But the one person you should probably be worried about, evangelical pastor Jonah of our generation, the one person you should be concerned about God saving is you.
You.
As Nathan said to David, you are the man.
Judgment is here.
And it begins with the house of God.
And it begins first and foremost within the house of God with ministers of God.
There are people we've despised, we've looked down on.
Like the priest who would walk by, somebody who's laying in the street, who's been mugged by robbers, but it's the Samaritan that actually stops and helps.
The fact that God's been using Jordan Peterson is an indictment to the church.
No more Jonah pastors.
No more Jonah prophets.
We need men who will preach God's word faithfully and that will know the times like the sons of Issachar and be willing to go to whatever people the Lord sends them to, whether they're the Assyrians or the racist Nazis, aka people who are probably not racist or Nazis.
That's what God is doing in our moment.
The borders have been increased.
Peace, peace was a genuine message.
But now it is no longer.
That message won't work anymore, not because it's positive, but because it's no longer true.
The hens have come home to roost.
It's time to pay the piper.
And God is raising up an army, but He's raising it up with a bunch of people that some of us have despised and thought that we were superior to for decades.
The Cost Of Remaining In Bitterness00:00:48
So will we repent?
Will we do what Jonah doesn't do?
Will we join Nineveh?
And will we call Israel to follow suit?
Or will we remain bitter?
But know that as much as you may try to justify your bitterness, and I know because I have myself, your bitterness is not the mere result of being wronged by others.
Your bitterness is being hurt but coupled with pride.
If you were humble, you wouldn't be bitter.
Nobody sinned against anybody as much as they did against Jesus.