A God Big on Mercy

If I asked you to tell me the story of Jonah, I bet every one of you could do it, because most of you heard it since you were a child. And if you could tell me about the story of Jonah, what would you tell me if I gave you ten minutes? Would you say Jonah's a story about a disobedient prophet who lands in the belly of a big fish? Would you tell me it's a story about the wicked inhabitants of Nineveh who listen to Jonah's message and turn to God in repentance and are saved? What else would you say? I used to view the story of Jonah with the emphasis placed on Jonah and how God dealt with him. I even have a sermon entitled, Fugitive from Grace, but I believe this story is much bigger than that.

I want us to go deep into the riches of this treasure trove of God's Word tonight, friends, as we study the Book of Jonah. The Book of Jonah has been ridiculed as a myth or fishtail, and even some Bible scholars regard it as a legend or a parable. However, the Jews accepted it as historical, and Jesus Christ vouched for its truth, which is good enough for me.

Jonah was a native Galilee who was given a preaching mission by God to go to the great and wicked city of Nineveh and warn them of God's coming judgment upon them, and if they did not repent and turn to God, they would be destroyed at the end of forty days. God put a time limit on it—forty days—but Jonah was reluctant to go because of his bigotry against the enemies of Israel. You know the story, friends.

Jonah flees from God and travels in the opposite direction of where he was commissioned to go. He ends up on a ship in a terrible storm. He is discovered by his seafaring mates to be the cause of their trouble, and he is cast overboard by them into a raging sea.

But God had prepared a fish—more likely a whale—to preserve the hard-headed prophet from drowning, and as a type of Christ he is in the belly of the fish for three days, and while he's shut up in there, he cries out to his God for deliverance, and the fish spews him up onto the beach near Nineveh. They were more than likely eyewitnesses to this, who stood by in shock as they beheld the soggy and crumpled prophet on the beach, whose skin was bleached from the acid in the belly of the whale. Jonah was a spectacle to behold, and he soon drew a crowd around him with a renewed passion, preaching God's message of repentance with the ring of heaven's authority.

Soon the entire city comes under conviction, from the street peddlers to the people in the courtroom of the king, and the king hears of it, and the king in Nineveh gets so convicted himself that he jumps off his throne and takes off his royal robe and grabs sackcloth as the garment of his humility, and he proclaims a decree in the city that every man and every beast was to go on a fast and turn from their evil ways and cry mightily to God for mercy. The king says, Who can tell if God will turn away from his fierce anger? And in Jonah 3.10 we read, And God saw their works, that they turned from their evil way, and God repented of the evil that he had said that he would do unto them, and he did it not. I believe the book of Jonah isn't primarily about Jonah, or the whale, or even the wicked inhabitants in Nineveh, friends, but it is a testimony to divine mercy.

Jonah describes the attributes of God in chapter 4 and verse 2 where he says, For I knew that thou art a gracious God, and merciful, and slow to anger, and of great kindness, and repentant thee of the evil. The story of Jonah declares the love of God toward the souls of man. The work of his hands will bring him glory, either as objects of mercy or objects of wrath.

Notice, friends, that God didn't send his servant Jonah with armies to destroy them, but he sent his preacher with a warning to save them. We see God's heart on display in Ezekiel 33.11, which declares, Say unto them, As I live, saith the Lord God, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but that the wicked turn from his way and live. Turn ye, turn ye from your evil ways, for why will you die? The book of Jonah is a testimony to the mercy of God, because the entire book overflows with the mercy of God, for the story of Jonah tells us about a God who is big on mercy.

All through this book is a demonstration of the mercy of God. He does not destroy Jonah in the storm, but sovereignly prepares a fish to save him. God doesn't send a horde of armies to destroy the wicked Ninevites, but a single prophet with a loving message of warning that brims over with his love to save them.

It is the preacher in the story who is prejudiced, not God. It is the preacher in the story who would rather see them destroyed, not God, and when the people repent and turn to God and believe him and are saved, the preacher doesn't rejoice and say Amen, but rather he's angry and he wants to die. In the book of Jonah, we see how God's people are reluctant to warn the wicked to turn from their wicked way.

Why? They are both prejudiced against them and too self-focused to bother to warn them. The book of Jonah is a contrast between the hard-headed people of God who have a gospel of peace and reconciliation to share with the sinful world, but are reluctant to do it just like Jonah was, and about a merciful God in heaven who is actively watching the movement of his creation and who is deeply interested in them and in their turning to him in repentance to be reconciled to him. This book demonstrates the universality of God's love and the extent of his grace and that it is God's intent that all people should repent and find mercy in him.

Yes, the book of Jonah is about a prophet by that name who is bigoted. It's about a big whale who swallows him. It's about a big city full of big sinners, but it is primarily and mainly a story about a big God who is big on mercy and pardoning repenting sinners.

The book of Jonah should humble and shame every one of us for our miserable failure in our duty to warn the wicked and reveal our own bigotry against certain sinners and shine the spotlight on our own sinful self-centeredness and bring us to our knees in our own sackcloth and ashes of repentance for knowing about a God who showed mercy to us by saving us, but who are unwilling to go do anything about it. Yes, the story of Jonah is about a big fish and a big bunch of sinners just like us who need the same divine mercy. The story of Jonah reveals the big heart of a caring God over his creation.

In the last verse of Jonah we hear God declare, And should not I spare Nineveh, that great city wherein are more than sixscore thousand persons that cannot discern between the right hand and the left hand, and also much cattle? If a holy God who hates sin, cares about the work of his hands, and for his desire that all men come to repentance, should not we? Why should our theology get in the way of our witness? Why should our bigotry toward sinners get in the way of our witness? Why should our self-centeredness get in the way of our witness? Let's be honest, friends, and admit that many of us are more like Jonah than we thought we were. Should we not possess hearts that care for the souls of men? Let me lead us in prayer. Forgive me, great God Almighty, for my sins of being bigoted and prejudiced against certain sinners.

Forgive me for my great failure to warn the wicked, and forgive me for failing to pray for my own wicked country and the big sinners in it who need your mercy and grace to be saved. Let this day ring in the hallways of heaven, that from this day forth I will see you more and more as a God who is big on mercy, and that you desire all men to repent and be saved. You sent your only son to die so men could live.

He sits on your right hand with a crown on his head and nail prints in his hands and feet. You cared enough about me to send him. Jesus cared enough about me to come suffer and die on a bloody cross for me and my dirty rotten sins.

How can I live selfishly for me when you gave your all on that bloodstained tree, thaw out my icy heart, and make me a more obedient soul winner for thee and for thy glory? In the strong name of Jesus I pray, amen.