Jonah 4:5-8

Book of Jonah, chapter 4 and verses 5 to 8. So Jonah went out of the city, sat on the east side of the city, and there made him a booth, sat under it in the shadow, so he might see what would become of the city. And the Lord God prepared a gourd, and made it come up over Jonah. that it might be a shadow over his head to deliver him from his grief. So Jonah was exceedingly glad of the gourd. But God prepared a worm. When the morning rose the next day, and it smote the gourd that it withered. And it came to pass when the sun did arise, God prepared of eminent east wind. The sun beat upon the head of Jonah. And he fainted and wished in himself to die and said, It is better for me to die than to live. And God blessed to us is sacred and holy word this morning. Now, before I even start with the introduction, what stands out about these verses of scripture? If you were going to speak on these verses, what are the things that stand out here that would catch your eye? What is the theme here? Yes, I think the thing that I see here is there are prepared things. Three that he meant, Veminent East win is the third one. And so that seems that God prepared this, God prepared that, God prepared. Those are the three things. could stand out in these verses, and that’s where we’re going to build the lesson around those three issues this morning. There was a young boy once threw a large stone at a red-headed woodpecker that was drilling on a tree, and to his surprise, he actually hit the bird and killed it, and the bird fell to the ground. He picked up the lifeless bird, and he was filled with a bird. with guilt and remorse that he had killed the bird. And then I remember being taught out of the Bible about God’s purpose. Are not two sparrows sold for a farling, and one of them shall not follow the ground without your father. And he began to wonder, was this bird killed because its death had been decreed by God? Now, he knew his impulsive act of throwing the rock was wrong. And yet he was sure that God was involved in this incident in some way. It’s difficult sometimes for us to conceive of a God who can run a vast universe as we have, with all the galaxies and the sun and the various stars and the planets and so forth, and yet be intensely interested in little things. like woodpeckers falling to the ground. The Bible teaches that God uses his power and his wisdom to direct the affairs of this life down to the teeniest little thing, even a little worm, as we see from our text of Scripture this morning. Even the most inconsequential things in this life can have a profound effect upon you, as we shall see here in the case of Jonah. Jonah, you recall, is salking because he had hoped that God was going to destroy the city of Nineveh, which was the capital of the Assyrians, the enemies of the people of God, and they repented. The thing he really didn’t want them to do, they repented, and knowing God is a merciful God, he’s afraid. that God is not now going to bring his wrath to bear upon the city, at least not at this time. And when you would think maybe that he should be staying in there teaching the people about God, he leaves the city, and he goes to a place, I guess, where he can overlook the city, builds this little booth, and he’s going to wait, see if the fire of God’s judgment is going to fall upon the city. So he’s outside the city. and it is this point where God had an encounter with him, and we see that he is very angry with God. And God here is going to teach Jonah a lesson. But he’s going to teach a lesson with things that we might say are little things. God prepared a gourd. He prepared. A worm, and he sent a Veminist East wind. Each of these things is going to have a profound effect upon Jonah. The life of Jonah can’t be written without God. He’s involved in everything. There are four prepared things in this book. What was the other thing he prepared? Do you remember? What else did God prepare? A great fish in chapter one. Your life is no different than Jonas because your life is interwoven with the events that God has brought into it in order to instruct you in some fashion. So we have this lesson in general laid out for us. Now let me begin by looking at verse 6. God prepared a gourd and made it come up over Jonah that it might be a shadow over his head to deliver him from his grief. So Jonah was exceedingly glad of the gourd. What might this gourd represent in a broader terms? What does this signify? How would you apply this to your own life? Not did you have a gourd grow up, but I mean, what is the application of this gourd to our life? What is going to? doing here? Sometimes God brings particular times of… Right. And so, God is in all the comforts and all the benefits you enjoy in life. He made the gourd. He made the gourd. He made the gourd come up. He made the gourd come up in the right place. Where Jonah was. So it would cover his head and give him some shay. This must have been a broadleaf plant. some have thought it might have been a castor oil plant, which has a large leaf. It resembles a human hand. But it grows very rapidly. This was a very rapidly growing gourd that came up. But it gave him shelter and a welcome shelter from the heat. It was exactly the right kind of gourd, the shield, Joan. And Jonah, we see. see is extremely happy because of the gourd that grew up. He rejoices in what comfort it provides him. It makes his life better as he sees it. He doesn’t seem very grateful, though, in this passage of scripture. It’s one thing to be pleased with the comfort. It’s another thing to give God thanks for the comfort. There’s an obligation here. Now, why is saying someone is lucky because he has all these good things happening in his life. Unbiblical. Why is that unbiblical? And so what happens is when we leave God out, we don’t thank him. If I think I’m lucky because of this, something good happened to me, I’m not thankful to God. And this is, this is, this is bad. This is sinful to have that kind of spirit. And so this is why we are so opposed to the whole concept of luck, it leaves God out of the picture, as if things happen by chance. And he is not directing these things. And therefore, well, I’m not obligated. Thank you. Because it just happened to fall out this way, and it happened the way I liked it. No, God brought it into your life, even if it’s a little comfort, he did it. And he deserves thanks for it. And so every good gift, every perfect gift comes down from the Father of Lights above, according to James 117. Now we can spend all our time rejoicing over all the good things we have and yet fail to thank the Lord for giving them to us. And I think that comfort then becomes an idol to us. So don’t let your gourd cause you to focus merely on what gives you pleasure, but remember who brought the gourd into your life. I think that’s the idea here. And the heathen talk about chance. The Christian talks about God and got what God is done. I read a story about the man in 1949, Jack Worm was broke. he was out of work he was walking along the beach in San Francisco and he found a bottle that had floated through the water and onto the beach and he picked it up and he opened it and in the bottle was a note and as he began to read the note he discovered it was the last will and testament of daisy singer Alexander who was the heir to the singer sewing machine company. The note read, To avoid confusion, I leave my entire state to the person who finds this bottle and to my attorney, Barry Cohen, share and share alike. The courts accepted the theory that this bottle had been tossed into the Thames River in London and from there had drifted across the oceans and ended up on the beach in San Francisco where this guy happened to be walking and he picked it up. And therefore he, as a pennless, jobless man inherited $6 million in a lot of singer-sewing machine company stock. The Lord maketh the poor and he maketh the rich. He bringeth low and he lifteth up. Did it happen by chance? No. God did that. So when we see these kind of things happen, we have to say, what is God doing? just a bottle and a note in a bottle. Somehow or other, he happens to find it on the beach. A little thing, you might think, and yet look how profound it was in changing this man’s life. And God directed that bottle to the man at that point. So you see, the beneficial things you enjoy in life are not the result of luck. Now, what does this gourd tell you about God’s dealings with his wayward people? Think about the condition spiritually that Jonah is in and then think about the gourd that God causes to come up. What does that tell you about how God deals with us at times? We get better than we deserve, right? We get better than we deserve. It’s Jacob said he’s not worthy of the least of God’s mercies. This may be one of the least mercies, but it was a mercy or a good thing that God’s, God brought into Jonah’s life. Nothing deals with a bad conscience better than undeserved kindness. You remember what we’re told in Scripture about how to deal with our enemies? What are we told to do? Shoot them on cider. Yes? Yeah. It’s a way to defeat them. My. mother used to say her father used to say kill people with kindness kill them with kindness that’s that’s sort of the idea here you defeat them by kind in God in a way here by being good to Jonah here he’s in a way dealing with him he’s going to heave some coals on his head here he’s going to I think he’s going to make him think about the situation here he’s steamed because God isn’t destroying the city he’s sick of everybody, including himself. He’s ready to die. He’s tired of this. And yet here God shows him very great kindness, doesn’t he? Has God sent you comforts when you didn’t deserve them? When you actually deserve the most, you know, painful spanking you ever got? And yet somehow God showed kindness to you. God sent you a comfort. He sent you a comfort. a good thing. It’s because God is tender in dealing with his children. And if you look back at your past life and think of all the comforts that you have received, you realize how little you deserve any of those comforts and yet God has provided them for you. It ought to soften your heart. It ought to make you bless God and be thankful to God and be appreciative of God. And be accepting of who he is. So God is in all your comforts and blessings in life. Now let’s look at verse 7. But, boy, that’s an ominous butt there, isn’t there? But God prepared a worm when the morning rose the next day, and it made the gourd that it withered. Now, what might the worm represent in your life? What does the, we look at this in a broader context, what does the worm indicate to us? what does the worm do? The worm is the Lord taketh away that comes after the Lord giveeth. Yes. Here, now we’re talking about bereavement. We’re talking about loss that God brings into your life. And what does the speed at which this worm work teach you? Does it give you any indication? Yeah. Well, there isn’t any security in these earthly things that can vanish away so quickly. Suddenly. Next thing he knows, this gourd that he was so happy about it, it’s gone. You know, we’ve got a 24-hour window here, and it seems like it’s gone. It disappears. So Jonas Gord here is destroyed. Your comforts can be destroyed by something very small. The word translated worm here actually means red or scarlet. It must have been some crimson type or colored worm. Sometimes I use these for dye in various. clothing. You know, they used this particular worm. Look at the havoc, though. This worm wrought. Evidently, Joni didn’t see the worm doing the eating because if he had, he probably would have killed it. But he doesn’t see it. Silently, quickly, he does the damage. And we don’t know if he ate around the bottom of it or whatever happened, but next thing he knows, he loses his gourd to his grief. All of the thing that brought him pleasure and joy here this gourd is gone. It came and went so fast. Certainly this teaches us that our comforts in this life may be taken away at a moment’s notice suddenly, quickly. In a way you don’t even expect, and all of a sudden it’s gone. You know, a little fluctuation in the stock market, and you can go from a prosperous stockholder to bankruptcy. You know, the tech stock, you know, plummets, the company fails, there’s scandal that destroys the stock value or something, and all of a sudden, it’s gone. It’s gone. A tiny spot of cancer discovered in your child and your world gets turned upside up. A small hole in the brake line of the family car in your mourning the loss of a mate. A tiny electric short in your wiring and your beautiful and expensive home goes up in smoke. A small orange peel on the sidewalk. and you’re in traction in the hospital. You know, people often think that no worm is ever going to affect the comforts and the pleasures they have in life. God, when God sends it, it’s gone. It’s gone. He’s going to, he can take it away. This worm appears out of nowhere. Suddenly and quickly does the damage and it’s too late. Now, since God prepared the worm, what does this tell you about God’s rule in bereavement and loss? Do these things change? just happened to? Every bit as much of, they’re all from this hand. We often hear, whenever there’s a tragedy, you hear these ministers get on, if you ever hear the news or something, and they’re going to say, wow, you know, God is upset that this happened. You know, God is mourning the law. God sent it. God brought it about. It is as sad as the condition may be, and we may not be happy. by the condition, we have to recognize it’s God and has brought it. To say that God didn’t bring it means that nobody’s in control. These things are just randomly happening. I’d rather have God in control, because that’s what the Bible tells me is going on. And that means that he has a purpose in it in what he’s doing. Boy, Jonah went to sleep one night all happy, and the next day he finds out very early before the sun comes up, he loses his comfort. Not long after arriving in the new Hebrides as a pioneer missionary, John Patton had an unexpected blessing. His wife became pregnant. Soon he and his wife were rejoicing, a baby boy gladdened their home, but the boy was short-lived. Suddenly, sickness or death, brought death to both the mother and the child, and Dr. Patton had to dig their grave. and buried his beloved ones by his own hands, with his own hands. Writing of this experience, John Patton testified, he said, if it had not been for Jesus, and the fellowship in grace he afforded me, I certainly, I am certain that I would have gone mad or died of grief beside their lonely graves. There’s a frailty to all the things that occur in this life. we’re very much everything’s very much like Jonas Gord here today gone no more the difficult lesson here is that God sent this but it’s true that sometimes we look at things and we think when bad things happen and Satan is doing this Satan may have a finger in it but ultimately Satan has to have God’s permission as Jonah’s story or Joe’s story tells us to do it. So God’s stands behind all that happens, and we have to realize this. We have to remember this matter. You know, when a, if you hit a dog with a stick, sometimes the dog bites the stick. Instead of biting you, he bites the stick. He thinks that the stick is the problem. Well, sometimes we look at secondary things and we don’t look at who’s wielding the stick. It’s God it’s wielding the stick. God sends the worm. Sometimes we have to be like old Eli who said, well, it is the Lord, let him do what seemeth him good and be accepting. And like Aaron, when he lost his two sons, he held his peace. Didn’t, you know, rant and rave against God. Last week, I should say two weeks ago, I was in dialysis and there’s gentlemen. There’s a gentleman that’s sitting, I’m sitting in the corner, and he’s on the other part of the corner, so we can see each other. Usually there’s a machine between you and the next person. You can’t see, but since we’re both on corners, he could see me, and I could see him. So he sees me over there writing and working all this, and he asked me about what I was doing, and I got the talking with him, and he said to me one day, he said, did you ever ask God why? Did you ever ask God why? My answer to that was that I accept that everything that happens comes from God himself, and it has a good purpose in it, and for those who love the Lord is working for their good. I said, maybe I needed to meet somebody here. Maybe I needed to have a grace develop in my life, like patience. So actually, I never really asked why. I never, it never, I guess I never got to the point, I said, why is all this happen? I accepted the fact that God must have brought it into my life for a reason. I guess that’s how I looked at it, and it didn’t seem to upset me as it upset him. I think he was looking at it. Well, I don’t deserve this. Whereas I’m looking at it, well, God must have a good purpose in this, or he wouldn’t have it. He wouldn’t have it. So he’s looking at it completely different than I am. And so when he asked me about, you know, what are you doing? And he said, well, did you ever write a book? I said, yeah, I did write a book. And I have a book that right here I wrote. and I gave it to him. And he started reading. He asked me a question about, so he evidently, he’s starting to read it. So I don’t know where that’s going to go. But this is how people think. They’re thinking that, you know, it’s not right for God to do this. Yeah, it’s right for God can do it, and it’s right for him to do it. Because he knows what’s best. Now, the third thing, verse 8, and it came to pass, when the sun did rise, that God prepared a Veminent East Wind. And the sun beat upon the head of Jonah that he fainted, and he wished in himself to die. And he said, it’s better for me to die than to live. What might God sending a Veminent East Wind, in addition to the worm, indicate to us? Okay. He needs to use both the worm and the Veminent East Wind. It’s a good. It does indicate to us that God sends back-to-back troubles, doesn’t he at times? And evidently, you’re right. I don’t think one was enough. Just putting him back to where he was before was enough. He’s going to make the condition now worse than it was before the gourd came up. The scorching east wind is like a furnace. It’s the idea. The idea of it was hot air upon him. It’s like being in a house on a hot day, and having the, you know, maybe a heater turned up. up the 90 or something in the house or something. It’s an east wind it comes. Troubles seldom come alone. You know, they come in packs. Anne of Green Gables, I’d like to say, I had a Joan a day, you know. It wasn’t just that one day. Everything went wrong. You know, that’s, some days they’re like that, it seems. It happened, one thing will come on the back of another, and you might think, well, why is this trial coming? I can’t bury it. any more than I’m already bearing. I read about Job. He’s grieving over the loss of his sons and daughters, and he’s getting, you know, more messengers coming, telling him other things you’re going to, you know, are stolen, his cattle and so forth. And if that wasn’t enough, then Boyles break out all over his body. Head to foot. And if that wasn’t enough, he has three so-called friends that come are going to blame him for all the bad things that happened. It must be his fault. what kind of sin do you have in your life that this has happened to you? That was a bad situation for him. Now, what do you learn from Jonah’s response to this new and heavier trial? Did this solve all his, did this, you know, change his spirit, this attitude and everything? Now he’s a different person? They curse him. They curse God. Because of it. Yes, they don’t repent. And here’s Jonah. And sometimes people think, well, if I, you know, there’s this popular notion that trials will sanctify you if you endure them. Well, Johnny endures the trial here, but it doesn’t sanctify him. If anything, he says, I’m tired of all this. I want to die. The trial itself can actually make you worse than you were previously. Because Jonah here, he’s now worse, he just seems worse off. The gourd is gone. The sun’s beating down all. on his head and this tremendous heat is generated by the east wind blasting away at him. He faints on there all. So the trial at this point hasn’t brought him to repentance and hasn’t changed him. And we should learn from this that unless God sanctifies the trial, unless he works grace in us, using the trial, which is normally his way of doing things, we’re going to be the same way or worse. you know, we’re going to get, you’re going to be more aggravated. So God has to use his grace. The trial itself, it’s not enough to change you. It takes God’s grace with the trial to help us. Someone has said, if suffering could make you holy, then purgatory would be a good doctrine because eventually, you know, you suffer in purgatory, you’d eventually get holy. If it was, if God’s grace, is not involved, you would never get holy. Never. And a thousand years. It’s the work of God in your grief that matters. God’s not done with Jonah yet. He needs some instruction here. Realize that he sometimes will tear everything from you, your home, your family, your wealth, your health, and yet he’s still working for your good. Isn’t God working for Jonah’s good here? Isn’t God working for Jonah’s good here? Isn’t he really working to change his spirit? So you can have 10,000 trials fall upon you, and yet you’re not going to be none the better. Unless the spirit of God works in you by that might of His and changes you. Sometimes it’s only after the trial that we actually realize the benefit that God is working in us through it. Well, I’ve got to stop. Any other thoughts on this? I could do a little bit more, but I think we’ve covered the basic thrust to this teaching. Alright, let us close then.