Open—Phil Fournier
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Let's see #43 is the appendix that.
Your back.
Lost 20% of the benefits and that that that's good.
Like it was a loved one that 1.
Can't breathe and give us the time I and when my God loved him without calling my name so I may pray his name and play firmly and draw on.
Any trust in his time and he didn't even play any of these issues.
Before work be done by grace.
For reaching me and training again.
Father to see how you finished.
OK.
And rattling.
Let's ask the Lord's help.
Blessed God, our Father.
We do thank thee for the blessed privilege that we have this morning to meditate upon my beloved son.
To think about that one who sold all that he had was rich and became poor.
He emptied himself.
And now as we open my ward this afternoon, our God, we do pray thou. It's feed our souls. Tell us more about the Lord Jesus. Give us more of Christ.
We ask this in the precious worthy name of the Lord Jesus. Amen. Amen.
It's just read a verse in John chapter 13. John's Gospel, chapter 13.
OK.
And just verse 8, John 13 and verse eight, Peter saith unto him, Thou shalt never wash my feet. Jesus answered him, If I wash thee not, thou hast no part with me.
Well, I was thinking about.
The work of God that our brother Bruce talked about yesterday afternoon and one of those works we I think we've been taking up in Hebrews chapter 12 regarding his work in our souls to bring us into fellowship with himself. And I don't, I wanna try and keep this short in order to give opportunity to someone else to have a word.
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So what I have on my heart is.
Jonah and Jonah can be taken up. The short book 4 chapters can be taken up in a number of different ways.
But I have enjoyed it in this way, in that in the book of Jonah we find a man who was out of the train of God's thoughts and he resisted it. He didn't want to be in the train of God's thoughts, and yet God in a gentle, tender and loving way.
Way brings Jonah along to see things his way. God wanted to share his thoughts concerning the heathen.
But Jonah, but he didn't have the same opinion and he resisted it. And the way in which God brings him to, to see things clearly is, is so touching. Uh, but before we go to Jonah, let's go to these first. Keynes might be second.
Let's try Second Kings first.
I'll find it and then I'll tell you where it's at. I think I can find it here. Yeah. Second King's 14 new the position on the page, but I don't remember that reference. Second Kings chapter 14 and we get here, I think the only other mention of the prophet Jonah outside of in the book of Jonah. And we we get a little insight, I think into Jonas and to Jonas thinking and what God had used him for prior to sending him to the Gentile city.
The Assyrian city of the Ninevites and.
Verse 23 to get the connection, in the 15th year of Amazon, the son of Joash king of Judah, Jeroboam the son of Joash king of Israel, began to reign in Samaria, and reign 40 and one years. And he did that which was evil in the sight of the Lord. He departed not from all the sins of Jeroboam the son of Nevad, who made Israel the sin. Now notice this is so remarkable.
He restored the coast of Israel from the entering of Hamath under the Sea of the Plain.
According to the word of the Lord God of Israel, which he spake by the hand of his servant Jonah.
The son of Amitai the prophet, which was of Gath Heber Heifer. For the Lord saw the affliction of Israel, that it was very bitter, for there was not any shut up, nor any left, nor any helper for Israel. And the Lord said not that he would blot out the name of Israel from under heaven, but he saved them by the hand of Jeroboam the son of Joash. So this was, as far as we know, the only other message that Jonah had ever carried.
And it was to his own people.
And he carried it gladly. And it was a message of deliverance and a blessing. And they didn't deserve it. They weren't any better than the Ninevites. They were just as idolatrous, just as wicked. And God saw their affliction, and he sent Jonah to them with a message of deliverance. And they were saved by the hand of an idolatrous, idolatrous and wicked king.
And God delivered it because he saw their flesh. So now let's turn to the book of Jonah.
And umm, once again I'm going to try and go through this.
Ezekiel, Daniel. Hosea, Joel Amos.
Jonah.
And we're just gonna, just gonna pick a few verses out of this and, uh, try and read the 4th chapter in its entirety. Umm, but chapter one, first Jonah, chapter one and verse one. Now the word of the Lord came unto Jonah, the son of Amitai, saying arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and cry against it for their wickedness has come up before me. But Jonah rose up to flee.
Under charsish from the presence of the Lord and we'll go down to verse.
Nine And he said unto them, That's the Mariners in the in the little boat. I am in Hebrew, and I fear the Lord. That's Jehovah, the God of heaven, which hath made the sea in the dry land. Then were the men exceedingly afraid, and set on him. Why hast thou done this?
For the men knew that he fled from the presence of the Lord, because he had told them.
Verse 17 Now the Lord had prepared a great fish to swallow up Jonah, and Jonah was in the belly of the fish 3 days and three nights. Then Jonah prayed under the Lord as God out of the fish's Bale belly. Well, just for introductory sake, we find here that he gets a message and we find out in chapter 4 his motivation.
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But God said to him, go to the city of Nineveh and cry against it.
And Jonah said in his heart.
I don't wanna go there. Those are wicked enemy people of God. And I know what God got in his mind, and I'm not gonna do it. And we find that this this, this stubbornness that was in the profit. Jonah is so remarkable because what he said to those Mariners.
They recognized this man knows the true God.
And they said, why hast thou done this? When they heard what he done, he fled from the presence of the Lord. He told them that, you know, this isn't repentance on the part of Jonah. He feels bad because he's brought other people into trouble. And so he tells them the story. And his thought, his only thought is death, Throw me into the ocean. That'll take care of the problem. It's me, it's my fault. I know that for my sake, this campus has come upon you. And so they didn't want to, but they did eventually threw them into the water.
And the fish swallowed Jonah and he was in there and I'm gonna say this thing, I can't exactly back it up with, uh, other than what I read here in Scripture. But it looks to me like he held out for three days in the valley of the fish before he prayed. He was determined he was not going to turn to God because he didn't want to do what God had sent him to do. And so he, he 3 days and then he prayed. And you know, it's a marvelous prayer and we, we enjoy Jonah in that.
Like you know, Jonah was thrown into the water in disobedience. The Lord Jesus went to the cross in perfect obedience. Jonah's life was given that the Mariners lives might be saved.
But Jonah didn't die. He was delivered from death. The Lord Jesus went into death. He truly died. He went into that dark place that our brother Bruce was telling us about, that deep, that deep hole in the ground. And in the in the second chapter we get, I believe prophetically, the sufferings of the Lord Jesus In the dark hours of Calvary, I went down to the bottoms of the mountains. The weeds were wrapped about my head.
It's profound language. We think of the sufferings of Christ that we cannot enter into those.
Propitiatory sufferings that he had in the, in the hours of darkness. And so Jonah in a, in a ironic and remarkable way, in his stubbornness and his rebellion becomes a type of the Lord Jesus, though of course a defective one, uh, because of what we've just said, that the Lord Jesus went in perfect obedience, a contrast rather than a comparison. And so Jonah is eventually.
Vomited out on the dry land and he's the Lord says go to Nineveh. He hadn't changed his mind and so Jonah goes.
And he preaches and his message has no word of mercy and nothing about repentance. It's only judgment in the third chapter and the fourth verse. And Jonah began entering the city, a day's journey. And he cried and said, yet 40 days, and none of us shall be overthrown.
What was in that of any mercy, Of any deliverance?
Jonah knew it was there, not the clear gospel that you and I enjoy and what we had last night, but still there was hidden in that a message because if you look down to verse.
9 This is the king that said this, he says, Who can tell if God will turn and repent and turn away his fierce anger that would perish not You know who could tell? Jonah.
He wasn't about to tell him, but he could, he could have, he had seen what God had done for well, rebellious and wicked Israel in their deliverance. And he knew this Gentile nation was no different. God was the same God. And so let's read in chapter 4 this, uh, tragic and yet instructive story, but it displeased Joan exceedingly. And he was very angry. And he prayed unto the Lord and said, I pray the O Lord was not.
This my saying, I didn't say this out loud, This was in his heart when he fled, when I was yet in my country. Therefore I fled before under Tarshish. For I knew that dauer a gracious God, Mer and merciful, slow to anger, and of great kindness and repentance thee of the evil. Oh, could we see a more beautiful explanation in the Old Testament of the character of God.
You and I know that the Father sent the Son to be the Savior of the world.
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Jonah didn't know that, but he did know an awful lot about God, enough that he didn't want to go to the city of Nineveh any preaching whatsoever. Because why 40 days? Why not destroy them today or tomorrow?
Oh, he knew what was in the heart of God, but he didn't share it. But you know.
That is the work of God in our hearts today.
To bring us into conformity with the thoughts of God, thoughts of God concerning the loss, the thoughts of God concerning his people, the thoughts of God concerning all things. That's what he's doing. That's his work in US today, and that was his work in Jonah. He's going to take this rebellious profit and make him see things God's way. He knew it, what God was like. And so when the king said, who can tell? Well, Jonah could have told him, but he didn't want to.
Now before we read the rest of this, let's just go to 2nd Kings chapter 5 because I wanna point out something I think is so remarkable.
Because here we find a little girl who had the thoughts of God.
She understood God's heart.
And she didn't have it easy and she wasn't treated well by the heathen.
These are Syrians rather than Assyrians, but the same people, enemies of the people of God. And I think you know what I'm going to read here, but chapter chapter 5, Second Kings 5 and verse two. And the Syrians had gone out by companies and brought away captive out of the land of Israel, a little made and she waited on Naaman's wife, and she said under her mistress would God my Lord, we're with the prophet that is in Samaria.
For he would recover him of his leprosy. This girl shared God's thoughts concerning the heathen.
Why did she say that? How old was she? A little maid? I'd like to think that she was maybe 10 or 11, like the age of maybe Lilly, or rather umm, Ellie, Andy and Jenny's daughter Ellie.
This little girl, she says she's been taken out of her parents home, a slave made to serve the wife of the captain of the guard. These people that are enemies, the people of God. She says, I wish my Lord would go to the prophets in Samaria. He would recover him of his leprosy. She'd never seen that happen before. The Lord tells us in Luke chapter 4, there were many lepers in Israel in the days of Elijah.
Elijah the prophet, and none of them was cleanse. But Naam in the Syrian Nobody had ever seen that happen before, and this little girl knew.
She understood the heart of God and what He would do for a name in the Syrian. Jonah knew that too, but he didn't want to and so he resisted and he sulked and he and he was angry. Verse 3. Back to Jonah chapter 4 and verse 3.
Then said the Lord, do so well to the angry.
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. I was hoping God would change his mind if he sulked enough.
That was a very strange attitude that God won't do that. You know, if you and I fuss, he's not gonna change his mind.
But he did something else then.
Verse six. And the Lord God prepared a gourd, and made it come up over the head of Jonah, that it might be a shadow over his head, and to deliver him from his grief. So Jonah was exceeding glad of the gourd. But God prepared a worm when the morning rose the next day, and it smoked a gourd, that it withered. And it came to pass, when the sun did arise, that God prepared of eminent E wind. And the sun beat upon the head of Jonah, and he fainted, and he wished in himself to die, and said.
It is better for me to die than to live. And God said to Jonah, Doest thou well to be angry for the gourd? And he said, I do well to be angry even unto death. Then said the Lord, Thou hast had pity on the gourd, for which thou hast not labored, neither made a stick 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, and also much cattle.
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You know, it's hardly requires comment.
But I just marvel at the patience of God with this petulant prophet who was so angry that he thought that if he soaked long enough, God would change his mind and destroy the city anyway. Even though he knew what God was like and he knew that he had determined that they had repented and he was going to spare that city from judgment at that time.
And that was not pleasing to Jonah. And so he's so very angry here. And he sits up there on that hillside and looks down at that city and just.
His temper is just boiling and the sun is boiling too. It's hot. And you know, we just went down the street here and looked at some pumpkins and this big giant leaves and big pumpkins growing there. But you know what? They were probably planted some time in the early summer maybe. And so they've had time to grow and get thick like that. This, this gourd was miraculously brought up by God in a day and it grew up there just.
Miraculously, and it was a I, I kind of imagine it like those pumpkin buns, except that it stood up.
And it, it was a shade over Jonah. And you know, when you're around grain trees and like that, it's, it's very comforting, especially out in the desert, there's moisture and, and oxygen and and shade. And so there he is enjoying that and says he was exceeding glad because of the gourd. And then along comes a worm and eats it and the wind blows and it blows over and the sun beats on his head. And now he's, he's angry on the death. And God says to him in that.
Kind and tender way. Doest thou well to be angry? And he answers. Yes, I do. Well, the angry even unto death. He is furious because that gourd has died and he doesn't have its comfort anymore. Oh, brother. And I don't think it's very hard to see what the parallel is. What was it that Jonah had sympathy with, that which ministered to his comforts?
He had pity on the guard because it made him feel better.
And when it was gone, he was and there was that city with 600,000 probably little children, doesn't say that specifically, but they didn't know their right hand from their left, supposedly. We asked the children that would maybe be five years and they start to know the right hand from their left. So children under the age of 5 or 600,000 of them, Jonah didn't think of thought about them. He was happy for God to destroy them.
How about the animals? Animals. Did God care for animals? Yes, and also much cattle.
Those were God's thoughts concerning that city. Jonah didn't share them. The God wanted them to share them. And so he gives them that beautiful little lesson on that hilltop that day. And you know, I was thinking is, uh, Andy was having his daughter try and count, uh, Courtney's hair. You know, your hairs are all numbered and about God's care for us individually. And here we see God is taking this man and you know, it's not a pleasant.
He's grumpy and he's mad. He's out of sorts. And can't you just hear the voice of God speaking to him? Doeth thou well to be angry? Do us thou well to be angry?
And he gives him an answer in the tenderest and kindness of words. You know, who wrote this book? Must have been Jonah. I don't know who else it would have been, could have been somebody else, but I think that's Jonah. And so he pens his own character right there for us to read and to appreciate and enjoy. And so that is my thought on the book of Jonah. It's real story and, and there's other things in there too. They're very wonderful and profound. Uh, but.
The story of God taking a man in the Old Testament and conforming him to his image, we might say He wanted him to think his thoughts concerning the children, concerning the cattle, concerning the city of Nineveh, concerning the heathen, concerning the wicked. God had done that with his own people, Israel, and he was happy for that, but not for the Assyrian. And yet God cared for the Assyrian. He cared for those children, He cared for those cattle, and he.
Jonah to think his thoughts and so I I believe that is what the work of God is is in our souls today. And so Peter says thou shall never wash my feet if I wash thee knot. Thou hast no part with me. You want to have part with the Lord. Do we want to share his thoughts? Do we want to have fellowship with him. Sometimes we're like Jonah and God asked to deal with us in his way. How wonderful though the patience and grace.
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And kindness with which he deals with us, And how great our knowledge of God compared to that of Jonah. He knew that God was merciful and gracious, and kind, and repented him of the evil. But we know so much more. We have seen and do testify that the Father sent the Son to be the Savior of the world. Behold what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of God. Surely we have far more reason than.
To be conformed to the thoughts of God.