The Sulking Servant (Part 2 of 2)

Sometimes God shows mercy to people we think deserve judgment. On Truth for Life weekend we'll see why we don't have the right to challenge God's decisions. Today Alistair Begg is examining God's response to Jonah after the Ninevites repented. We're studying chapter four in the book of Jonah. Now what we have here is not Jonah the Bible answer man, but what we've got here is Jonah the Bible question man. And while it is good for us to seek answers in the Bible, and the Bible is full of answers, it's also full of questions. Let me illustrate it from the book of Jeremiah. We could go all through the prophets, but let me just give you three illustrations from Jeremiah. If you want to turn to them, the first is in Jeremiah chapter 12. If you have an NIV, if you turn to Jeremiah 12, you will notice that it is headed Jeremiah's complaint. And this is how he begins, in other words, he establishes the nature of who God is and his understanding of theology.

And having said that, then he says, well, I'd like just to have a word with you, if I may, about your justice. Why does the way of the wicked prosper? Why do all the faithless live at ease?

Now, have you ever found yourself asking that question? Why is it that the fellow three offices down from me, who's a real scurrilous character, seems to do so well, his sales figures are so good, and he always gets promoted? And here am I, seem to be faithful, seem to be true to your word, and what do I get? Not a lot compared to him. Why do the faithless live at ease?

You have planted them, they've taken root, they grow and bear fruit. Yet look at me! Now, if we're honest, it's a fair question. And if we don't recognize it's a fair question, we're dishonest. And if you've never asked the question, the chances are you're brain dead. The psalmist asks it. The prophet asks it. Why, since you are a just God, do people who do so many bad things come off so well, and those who are your chosen who seek to obey you come off apparently so badly? Chapter 15, you've got another one.

You tell me you haven't asked this question either of circumstance facing yourself or a loved one. Verse 17, he says, I never sat in the company of revelers. I never made merry with them.

In other words, I haven't been going down the pub and getting smashed. Instead, I sat alone, because your hand was on me, and you had filled me with indignation. Now, here's the question.

Why is my pain unending and my wound grievous and incurable? Will you be to me like a deceptive brook, like a spring that fails? In other words, are you going to hang me out to dry God? Are you going to say, Come over here, and there's water? And I get over there desperate for a drink of water, and I discover that there is no water at all. It's a mirage in the desert.

This is the question of the prophet of God. I said I'd give you three illustrations, but two's enough. I can tell by the pained expression on your face that we need to keep moving. Let me say this in passing. Let us beware of always wanting to be the people with the answers.

Right? I don't mean let us embrace vagueness. Let us walk around saying, We don't know, and nobody knows. There are certain things that the Bible has given us absolute clarity on, concerning which we can be clear and straightforward. But the fact of the matter is there are dilemmas in life which will remain unresolved until we see God face to face, and we are known by him, and we know even as he knows. And it is not a service to the Christian cause for us to seek to dance around those issues and provide trite answers to deep-seated questions. I would warrant that more of our friends and neighbors who are wrestling with such issues will be more closer drawn to a consideration of Christ by an honest acknowledgment on our part of the dimension of mystery that is contained in so much that God does, rather than an attempt on our part always to have some slick and immediate answer to any question that they're able to raise.

Come on, you're sensible people. You need to consider that kind of thing. Questions are understandable, although all of our questions are not always commendable. And there is, I think, a key to what's going on here when you consider that in the arguing of Jonah there is a little too much Jonah. Do you notice how many times the personal pronoun pops out? Oh Lord, is this not what I said when I was still at home?

That is why I was so quick. I knew, take away my life, it's better for me to die than to live. When you and I find ourselves arguing with God, if we're honest, we'll find there's a little bit too much beg in our questions.

At least in my case, in yours, of course, we apply your own name. I'm prepared to carry the weight for my own, but I'm not prepared to carry the weight for yours. What is he doing? Well, he's presenting the issue as a matter of Jonah's word against the Lord's word, and he rather thinks that his own is better.

You ever been there? Now, I know, Lord Jesus, that the Bible says this. My feeling is this.

I like to go with my feeling if that's okay with you. I know that it says this clearly, but actually, I have another approach to it. And in Jonah's case, the root issue is a double standard. He has a standard for himself and the people of God, namely Israel, and then he has another standard by which the foreigners and the enemies of God's people are to be judged. It was okay for God to forgive Jonah's disobedience but not, in Jonah's mind, just as right for God to show his mercy to the Ninevites. I kind of like it, God, that you're kind and compassionate towards me. Got me out of that dreadful problem there where I was about to drown, but I don't like this idea of your kindness and your compassion being shown to them. After all, this Assyrian power, God, is an enemy of your people. These are bad people, God. I mean, when I went in there to pronounce judgment, I was pumped about it, because I said, Let it fall, you know.

Let it come down. Let it rain down on them fast and hard. But God, I don't expect you to be compassionate to them. They're not monotheistic like us. They don't pay attention to the law of Moses like us. They don't bring their children up in the nurture and admonition of God, repaying the Shema in Deuteronomy 6. They don't observe the various codes and shibboleths and dimensions of an existence of those who are the true people of God. God, why would you be merciful to them?

You see, it's the question I posed earlier. It's the issue of the sovereignty of God's grace. Now, whenever you find yourself thinking that way, as did Jonah, then it will be clear that we have forgotten just how undeserving we are to be the recipients of God's grace. The grace of God had flowed to the people of Israel, not along roots that are approved or understood by human reasoning. I mean, it's been summarized by people long since in the little phrase, how odd of God to choose the Jew. It's not an anti-Semitic statement. It's simply an expression of the fact. How in the world, God, did you choose this group of people?

On what basis? What is the answer? Well, the answer is in Deuteronomy 7 and verse 8.

And when you get to it, you're going to say, I don't know, that's a great answer. The Lord did not set his affection on you and choose you because you were more numerous than other peoples, for you were the fewest of all peoples. But it was because the Lord loved you that he brought you out with a mighty hand and redeemed you. It's the sovereignty of his grace.

Says one Scottish theologian, ultimately divine grace toward sinners cannot be understood. It does not have a reason. It simply reflects the way God is. Let me say that to you again. It's one of those quotes that I wish was mine. And I deliberately write the man's name underneath it in my notes, less than years to come.

Either myself or somebody else will be tempted to take it to me. Ultimately, divine grace toward sinners cannot be understood. It's amazing grace, isn't it?

It doesn't have a reason. It simply reflects the way God is. Now, despite the fact that Jonah had so recently been the recipient of God's compassion that he'd been on the receiving end of God's mercy, still here we find him finding fault with God for displaying the very same mercy to those whom he felt to be beyond the circle of redemption. In other words, he had created categories in his own mind, and he had determined that God's plan and purpose was centered only in this way, and that anybody else, whoever they were, was not deserving of God's grace. Deserving of grace?

Is that not the ultimate oxymoron? Of course they weren't deserving of grace. What was Jonah deserving of in his disobedient heart?

Not a special limousine, sea limousine, to deposit him on dry ground. And so he is angry with God—angry in God for acting in a way that Jonah did not understand or approve. Let me pause there for a moment. Angry with God for acting in a way that Jonah did not understand or approve. Have you ever been there, Christian?

Some of us may be here this morning, and that is exactly where we are. Suddenly, the Spirit of God puts, as it were, a pin right into the core of our being. And although our friends and neighbors, our family and our loved ones may not have an inkling of this, the reason that we are where we are in our spiritual pilgrimage, which is actually by path meadow, is an account of the fact that somewhere along the line, something happened to us or through us that we do not approve of, do not like, and we are angry with God forever in his permissive will, allowing it in the first place. We thought that when we committed our lives to Christ, we were going to have the perfect marriage, and it crumbled on us, and we're angry. We thought that as a result of putting God first in Matthew 6 33, all these other things would have to do with finance and with status and with significance and with resource.

And we have found that we haven't got much beyond the third floor in our office building, and the chances of us being able to have any kind of meaningful retirement have seemed to dim on us long time past. And we are angry with God, because God has chosen to act in us and through us in a way that either we do not understand or we do not approve. And so, because the Lord has failed to meet Jonah's expectations, Jonah decides to sulk. "'O Lord, take away my life,' verse 3.

It's better for me to die than to live." So God says, Okay, thanks for all of that. Jonah, let me just come back to you, and let me come back to you with a straightforward question, because it is clear that you're not thinking straight. And the Lord replied, verse 4, "'Have you any right to be angry?'" In the summertime at Camp O' the Woods, up in the Adirondacks, in the question-and-answer session with which the week concluded, in the course of the questions that were put to me, somebody asked a question about being angry with God.

I can't remember it exactly. I think it was along these lines, Is it ever right for the Christian to be angry with God? My answer was that it is understandable that the Christian pilgrim would be angry with God, but I don't believe it is actually ever right. So while it is understandable it's not right, you see, the Lord is not asking, Are you angry? He says, I know you're angry, but I want to ask you, Have you any right to be angry?

Now, this takes us to the core issue of the whole matter. Does Jonah, as a representative of a people chosen by God for no merit on their part, a people whom God has favored even when they've gone astray, as a prophet who in his disobedience has personally known the saving hand of God in his life, does this Jonah have any valid grounds for objecting if God, out of his mercy, shows his compassion to other people? Now, the answer is clearly that neither Jonah nor we have any right to challenge God on the way he extends his mercy.

No right to challenge God on the way he extends his mercy. Now, only those who have been grasped by grace will be able to rejoice in the superabundance of God's grace lavished upon those who are so clearly undeserving. So let me conclude with this thought. Have you been grasped by God's grace? Now, use that phrase purposefully, because it gives all of the initiative to God.

You will notice that. The question is not, Have you ever invited Jesus into your heart? It's a good question. It's never a New Testament question. You'll never find anywhere in the New Testament that anybody is invited to ask Jesus into their heart.

It's a question that is common in circles such as ours. This is a far more biblical question than it is, Have you ever been grasped by God's grace? Have you ever moved from a position where, frankly, the Bible was a closed and a dead book to you, where suddenly the Bible became alive to you? Where the possibilities of attending worship were regarded as, frankly, a bad idea, and you endured it as best you could whenever you came?

Some of you may be still there this morning. And what happened was that the Bible suddenly opened up to you, that the singing of God's praise suddenly moved your heart and stirred you, that the issue of a dying Christ suddenly became the most pressing matter to you in relationship to the fact that you realized that you were dead in your trespasses and in your sins, and you couldn't really explain what was going on. I heard a lady not so long ago give her testimony, and she talked about how she had gone and heard someone preaching, and she had been so moved and stirred in her heart, and she'd gone home to her room as a university student, and she'd begun to read her Bible, and she'd prayed out to God, but she frankly didn't know what to read and didn't know what to pray. And some weeks later, attending the freshers' event of the university at which she had begun, somebody laid out the gospel and the plan of salvation, and when they laid out the nature of what it means to know God and to trust him and to repent and to embrace him, she said, Oh, that's what's happened to me.

That's what's happened to me. Now, the reason I ask the question in this way is simply this. Pharisaism is alive and well, sadly, in churches like this. Individuals who have not been grasped by grace but who, in some short-circuited endeavor for a relationship with God, have simply exchanged one set of external circumstances for another set, they've dumped the non-Christian list, and they've gone for the Christian list. And simultaneously, they find in their hearts not a sense of empathy and compassion for those who are disfigured and who are spoiled and who are broken and who know themselves to be wretched. Instead of compassion being there, there's resentment there. And they find themselves saying, You and all these people deserve what they get.

The people like that, doing that, going there, thinking that, believing that. I put it to you, that is not the response of someone who has been grasped by grace. Because the individual who has been grasped by grace says, That was me. In fact, absent your grace, Lord Jesus, that is me.

Going there, doing that, thinking this, embracing that. Look at all these people with a worldview that is so alien to our Christian worldview. Why do they believe that about a fetus? Because they're pagan. Because they're without God and without hope in the world.

Is it wrong, clearly? Should we stand then on a high horse and shout down to them? Are they beyond the circle of redemption? Those who, for whatever reason, have embraced a lifestyle that is so clearly contrary to that which is laid out in the Bible, shall we then go on a high hill and shout down to them? Shall we be Jonah in our day? Lord, I'm angry. Look at the kind of people you're letting in. It's okay for you to let us in.

But not that. Why did Jesus infuriate the Pharisees so much? Because he was the embodiment of this. Jesus, we'll be having a very important theological discussion at our home this evening, and a number of us, you'll identify as by our robes and our phylacteries, attached both to our foreheads and our wrists, we will be convening around seven o'clock. And we hope you can be there prompt, and make sure you wash your hands when you come in, as per the normal ceremonial customs. Jesus said, Sorry, I can't come. I'm going to Zacchaeus' house. Jesus, excuse me, do you know Zacchaeus? We know Zacchaeus. Zacchaeus is a con man. He's a cheat.

He's been ripping people off for ages. Yes, Jesus said, yeah, I'm going down to Zacchaeus' house. See, the Pharisee will never understand that. But the person who's been grasped by grace says, Right on! Let me finish in Luke 15.

You've got it embodied, don't you? The one son makes a hash of it, comes back up the road, his father embraces him, falls on his neck, kisses him, gives him new shoes, gives him new clothes, gives him new jewelry, gives him a shower, gives him a party, kills the fatted calf, gets the dancing going like crazy, and suddenly the elder brother shows up. And when the older brother heard the sound of music and dancing, he called one of the servants, Luke 15 26, to ask them what was going on.

Your brother has come, he replied. That should have made him happy, don't you think? He killed the fatted calf.

He's got him back safe and sound. But the older brother was angry and refused to go in. Why? Because he didn't understand grace. Because he was a slave in his father's house. When his father comes out and entreats him, he says, All these years I've slaved in your house, and you never gave me anything.

But when this son of yours, who took all the cash and went off and made a complete mess of things, comes back up the road, then we have the finest party that the neighborhood has ever seen. Explain that to me. Ultimately, divine grace toward sinners cannot be understood. It does not have a reason.

It simply reflects the way God is. See, this is the great challenge for us as a church family. It is to get out into the highways and byways of this great city and proclaim the news of God's amazing grace.

Only those who have experienced it may share it. Where are you? Where are we? God's grace is truly amazing.

We'll hear more about that next weekend. You're listening to Alistair Begg with a message titled The Sulking Servant on Truth for Life Weekend. These days it's becoming more and more noticeable that our faith as Bible-believing Christians puts us increasingly in the minority. Alistair wrote a book recently on this topic that explores the similarities between our contemporary world and the world Daniel lived in as an exile in ancient Babylon. The book is titled Brave by Faith, God-Sized Confidence in a Post-Christian World. It's available for you to download for free as an audiobook.

It's read by Alistair. You can request it through the end of this month at truthforlife.org slash brave. While you're on our website, be sure to check out another book we're recommending called Radically Whole, Gospel Healing for the Divided Heart. It's a study of the New Testament book of James, a book that is packed with practical but often challenging instructions for godly living. This is a great book to work through with your small group or Bible study. There are questions at the end of each chapter to encourage further discussion or personal reflection. Once again, you can learn more about the book Radically Whole when you go to our website truthforlife.org. I'm Bob Lapine. How many ways did God extend grace to Jonah and yet Jonah struggled to show others the same mercy? If we're honest, we're often guilty of the same reluctance, aren't we? Next weekend we'll find out how it's possible to extend grace even to those who have wronged us. The Bible teaching of Alistair Begg is furnished by Truth for Life where the Learning is for Living.