Sermon in Minneapolis 23.06.2013

Grace, mercy, and peace from God our Father and our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Let us begin our services with opening prayer and thanksgiving.

Holy and righteous God, our dear Heavenly Father, again this morning we thank you for this opportunity to gather around the hearing and studying of your holy word. We thank you for the gift of life and all that you have given us in our life, for our families, our near and dear ones, and for the time that we have been able to spend with them. We thank you for our free homeland where we can freely assemble together, especially around the world. We thank you for the gift of salvation, which is through your Son, Jesus Christ, and we can own and possess this gift of righteousness alone by faith, alone by grace, all through the merits of your Son, Jesus Christ.

So we ask for your presence this morning. Bless us. Bless our services. Comfort us with your word. Nourish us with your gospel and lead us on this narrow way of life. And bring us one day to our eternal home in heaven. Amen.

Today is the fifth Sunday after Pentecost. An Old Testament text for today is from Jonah. There are some verses from chapter 3 and some verses from chapter 4. So chapter 3, verses 1 through 5, and then 10, and then the beginning of chapter 4, verses 1 through 8. So we will hear these words assigned for this Sunday.

In the word of the Lord came unto Jonah the second time, saying, Arise, go into Nineveh, that great city, and preach unto it the preaching that I bid thee. So Jonah arose, and he went into Nineveh, according to the word of the Lord. Now Nineveh was an exceeding great city of three days' journey. And Jonah began to enter into that city a day's journey. And he cried, and he said, Forty days yet, and Nineveh shall be overthrown.

And so the people of Nineveh believed God and proclaimed, and put on sackcloth from the greatest of them even to the least of them. 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.

But it displeased Jonah exceedingly. And Jonah was very angry. And he prayed unto the Lord and said, I pray thee, O Lord, was not this my saying when I was yet in my country? Therefore I fled before unto Tarshish, for I knew that thou art a gracious, and merciful, slow to anger, and of great kindness, and repentest thee of the evil. Therefore now, O Lord, take, I beseech thee, my life from me. For it is better for me to die than to live.

Then said the Lord, Doest thou well to be angry?

And he said, I am angry. I am angry. I am angry. I am angry. I am angry. I am angry. I am angry. I am angry. I am angry. I am angry. I am 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.

And the Lord God prepared a gourd and made it to come up over Jonah, that it might be a shadow over his head 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 smote the gourd so that it withered.

And it came to pass when the sun did arise that God prepared a vehement east wind, and the sun beat upon the head of Jonah that he fainted and wished in himself to die, and said, It is better for me to die than to live. Amen.

Jonah received a very difficult task from God. He was suffering. He was supposed to go into the ancient city of Nineveh, which was the capital city of the great empire Assyria at that time. And the city was very large in size. It took a three-day journey on foot to walk from one edge of the city to the other.

And God commanded Jonah to go into that city and preach the sermon that God gave him to preach. So it was easy in the fact that the script was already given. You didn't have to think about a sermon, develop the theme, plan an outline. But all he had to do was open his mouth. The script was ready. And all he had to do was preach those words, those few words that God had given him.

And actually the city was small in standards to many of the cities of our time. Here in the Twin Cities area, there's probably three million, including all the suburbs. Well, the size of this city was 120,000 adult men. In those days, they didn't count women or children. So in addition, there were women and children. And so estimates have been that perhaps it was a million or more people. It is a lot in that city.

So God told Jonah, "Go from your home country there in Israel and go to this large ancient city and preach my sermon, which was you have 40 days. And if you do not repent, the city will be destroyed."

Well, this isn't the first time that God had or would destroy a city because of the city's ungodliness and unbelief. During the time of Noah, God destroyed the entire first world with a flood. And we remember also in the Old Testament time the two ancient cities of Sodom and Gomorrah were destroyed with fire and brimstone.

I'm sure God had given a warning to this great city of Nineveh, as God had warned the first world during the time of Noah. Noah preached to the world at that time for 120 years. And during that long period of time, not one person repented or was converted or changed their ways.

Also, God had given multiple warnings to those two ancient cities of Sodom and Gomorrah. And Abraham, we remember, even pleaded with God time and time again not to destroy that city. Abraham says if you can find 50 righteous or believers in that city, would you spare it? God agreed.

51. And the last thing that God said to Abraham was, He lowers the number once, twice, three times. Finally, he lowers it down to 10. God, if you can find 10 righteous souls in the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah, will you spare these two cities? God agreed.

And not even 10 righteous souls were found in these two cities. So the ultimate end was God finally fulfilled his promise. And the two cities were destroyed with fire and brimstone.

So God, now in our text and its situation, needed a preacher. God found a preacher and chose the prophet Jonah. And he tells Jonah to make that long, arduous journey. A journey to that capital city of Assyria. And simply preach that short sermon. You have 40 days to repent. Otherwise, this city will be destroyed.

Well, Jonah resisted. And he fled. Instead of going east, he went the opposite direction. He went due west. But this isn't the only time that there have been preachers who have resisted the call and the duty of God.

We remember Moses when God was there at the burning bush, talking to Moses, and telling him that he would be the leader of the people of Israel to lead them out of the bondage of Egypt and bring them to the promised land of Canaan. Moses resisted. He said, I am not an eloquent speaker. I have a stiff tongue and I am slow of speech.

But God wouldn't hear this alibi. He said, you have your younger brother Aaron. He is an eloquent man. He can be your mouthpiece. So in the end, Moses became God's selected tool to lead the people of Israel out of Egypt.

We also remember the call of the prophet Jeremiah, who was perhaps in his mid-teens at that time. And God called him to be a prophet to do his duty to preach unto the nation at that time, living a time of apostasy, a time of falling away from God.

And God gave the script or the sermon to Jeremiah to preach. All he had to do was open his mouth. And the text was prepared and ready to go. It was of tearing down and uprooting and destroying, but also planting, upbuilding, and constructing again.

But Jeremiah laments and complains, and he says that I am only a child. I am young. I am not fit to go face the nation of these adult people and to preach this challenging sermon. But God again would not hear this excuse and sent Jeremiah to be a prophet unto the people.

So we can see in many of these examples, time and time again throughout scripture, that the prophets and the preachers and God's tools do not work and function and operate with their own strength and their own abilities. But we can see that God gave these tools of the Lord, these prophets, the words to preach.

So now Jonah in our text, he flees the call of God. Instead of going east, as I said already, to Nineveh, into the empire of Assyria, he goes due west. He comes to the shore of the Mediterranean Sea and he boards a ship. And the ship is on its way to Tarshish.

It's not Tarshish, the hometown of the Apostle Paul, but it's Tarshish, which is a city in the country of Spain today. So it's a long voyage that the sea vessel is making over the Mediterranean Sea toward the present-day country of Spain.

So Jonah, in this case, begins to function and behave and operate according to his own mind. But as the ship is sailing and making its journey westward bound, a great storm arises. And it begins to toss this sea vessel to and fro.

And the people are exceedingly fearful and afraid that this boat will capsize and all will be lost. And so according to the ancient custom of that time, they begin to cast lots. And lo and behold, the lot falls on the prophet Jonah.

And when they find prophet Jonah, even though he had been disobedient to God and fleeing his call, they found Jonah in the midst of this great storm on the ship sleeping in his quarters. So he had great gifts of sleeping, even though he was traveling with, I'm sure, an offended conscience and an awakened conscience.

But now, when Jonah was woken up, and they told him that the lot fell on him, what does he say about this storm? That you must be involved or have some reason for this storm when the lots that we cast fell upon you.

Well, Jonah immediately says that I am the cause of the storm because I was disobedient to the call of God and I have fled from my duty that he was sending me to do.

And so Jonah says that in order to save the entire shipload of people, why don't you work and why don't you do this? Just take me and cast me overboard. He wanted to be the vicarious savior. He wanted to sacrifice.

And he was thinking that if he would do something on his part, he could save the rest of the people. This is a typical human thought, a rational idea that we can attempt to do something for the salvation of ourselves or maybe of some other people.

And we know what the result would be when Jonah would be cast overboard into that raging sea that was roiling because of the storm. And it would be certain death.

And we know what the Bible said of the disobedience of Adam and Eve. Or before they fell into disobedience, that if you eat of this one tree, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, you shall surely die.

And Adam and Eve listened to the deceit of the serpents, the whispering of the enemies of Saul, and ate of that forbidden tree. And it happened as God said. Death was encountered.

And so, certain death would surely encounter Jonah if, and as they did, cast him eventually overboard. But today's topic is have mercy. And this is a very powerful theme because we can see how God had mercy.

Even though the certain fate of Jonah was death. Even though the certain fate of Adam and Eve, eating of that tree of the knowledge of good and evil, was death. God had mercy. God spared Adam and Eve. And he gave that promise of the coming Messiah.

And likewise, Jonah was cast overboard to his certain fate of death. And God had mercy. God spared Jonah. And he sent a big fish.

We sometimes think in our mind that it may be a whale. But in the original tongue, in the original language, it says nothing of being a whale. It says it's a big fish or a sea monster.

But if we think of a whale, a whale is a plankton eating animal. And its throat is so small that a human finger couldn't even penetrate the opening of the whale's throat.

But yet, how is it possible that a human being the size of Jonah would be able to be swallowed by a plankton eating, even though it was a big fish? If it was a whale, the biggest fish or swimming creature in the sea.

But God was all-seeing and God was all-knowing. God was the Creator. God was the Creator of everything visible and invisible.

If He was able to create this world with His Word, it would only be but a simple task to enlarge the opening of the mouth and the throat of the whale to swallow one human being.

But on the other hand, it is interesting that research has shown, and they have found, that whales of some variety and type are in the area of the Mediterranean Sea where there have been skeletons of 10-foot sharks in the belly of a whale.

So there are and there have been such sea creatures large enough to easily swallow a human being.

But anyways, that isn't the main message of the story and of the text, but it does tell us that a big fish or a sea monster, whatever we want to call it, whatever it was, came and swallowed Jonah.

And he was in the belly of that sea creature for three days and three nights.

Again, the human mind may question and wonder, and think and ponder, that how is it possible that Jonah could have survived and stayed alive in that belly of the whale where the stomach acids immediately began to work and began to break down anything that's consumed in a belly of any creature or animal.

Well, we have no answers to that question, but we can say that even a bigger miracle was this.

And Jesus uses this story in some of his teachings. And he says, just as Jonah was in the belly of the whale, and the Gospel writer uses the word whale, but I think here in the book of Jonah the word whale is not used.

But anyways, Jesus says, just as Jonah was in the belly of the whale for three days and three nights, so I, the Son of Man, shall be in the bosom of the earth for three days and three nights.

Well, isn't it even a greater miracle that Jesus was buried in a tomb for three days and three nights and afterwards was able to be revived and came back to life and experience resurrection.

And so, Jonah was there in that belly of that sea creature for three days and three nights.

And we can say that Jonah was experiencing and did experience the foretaste of hell. It wasn't a pleasant experience by any means.

And we can read the prayer of Jonah that is recorded for us in chapter 2, the previous chapter. Then Jonah prayed unto the Lord his God out of the fish's belly, and here are some of the words of his prayer.

And he said, I cried by reason of my affliction unto the Lord, and he heard me. Out of the belly of hell cried I, and thou heardest my voice.

So, he is actually saying, he is crying from hell. And thou had cast me into the deep in the midst of the sea, and the floods compassed me about, and all thy billows in thy waves passed me over.

And so, the rest of chapter 2 tells of that prayer of agony and distress as he was in that belly of that sea creature for those three days and three nights experiencing the foretaste of hell.

But now, after three days and three nights, that fish or whatever that sea creature was came and spit up Jonah onto the shore, onto the dry land of the sea, or the shores of the sea of the Mediterranean Sea.

And Jonah was now a humbled man. He was now ready to go and do that duty, perform that task, preach that sermon that God had called him and told him to do.

And so now, he eventually arrives to the outskirts of this old ancient city of Nineveh. And it had 120,000 adults. In addition, there were hundreds of thousands of those, as here it says in our text in some portion, that they couldn't discern the left hand from the right hand. So, referring to little babies, infants, and children.

So, it was a large city when counting every inhabitant that was living there.

Now, this city, this ancient city of Nineveh, was well known for its wisdom, for its powerful military, its buildings, and also it was known for its ungodliness.

So, we may question and wonder what are some of the reasons that Jonah may have wanted to resist from going to preach in this city?

Well, the country of Assyria, the empire of Assyria was a big threat to the neighboring countries. And I'm sure he was afraid of the potential danger that it could be to his homeland of Judah.

And the Bible says that righteousness exalts a nation, but sin is the nation's shame.

And it was known for its might and power, but as I mentioned already, it was a city that was also known for its ungodliness.

And Jonah was supposed to go and preach about this ungodliness and rebuke him of this evil lifestyle.

And so, the second reason why Jonah perhaps resisted was it's always difficult for one to go and approach those in unbelief and to rebuke them of their ways.

So, I'm sure he was afraid to preach this sermon that God told him to preach.

And so, eventually, after being humbled, being in the belly of that whale for three days and three nights, comes to the edge of the city and he begins to preach.

At the edge, he preaches, You have yet 40 days. If you don't repent, this city will be destroyed.

Then he walks inward toward the middle of the city, another day's journey, and he stops again. And he delivers the sermon, You have 40 days. If you do not repent and are not converted, this city and all of its inhabitants will be destroyed.

I'm sure people thought this man was crazy and off of his rocker. And perhaps he should be taken a hold of and maybe brought into some mental hospital or done away with, quieted up.

But an amazing thing occurred. First of all, the king of that country, the king of that city, felt distress in his heart. And he declared a day of fasting for himself and the entire city.

And fasting was a sign of penitence. And he told the people to dress yourselves in sackcloth, another sign or symbol of penitence or remorse.

And beginning with the king to the rest of the inhabitants of the city, they all began to fast. They dressed in sackcloth. They sat down in piles of ashes. And they all repented.

Basically, a large number of people, 120,000 souls at least, were converted. And so, a great miracle of new birth took place among all of these inhabitants.

So, we can wonder how is it possible that such a great time of awakening took place?

Well, God can speak to us in many ways and using many means. And in the catechism, or the extension to the catechism that is used at confirmation camp, which has been translated from the Finnish language, it talks about the general revelation of God.

That God can speak and does speak to us as human beings through sicknesses and illnesses, through fates of nations, through fates of lives of near ones and dear ones.

And in these many different means and through these manners, God is able to stop us in our tracks, pause us to ponder, and think about our soul's condition, and our situation, our status before our Creator, our God in heaven.

And this city and this country had been experiencing misfortunes and pestilences of some sort, and I'm sure these, in a way, in the natural sense, had caused grief and caused the people to think and ponder about the world. Ponder and wonder.

So God, in using His general revelation, had already begun to prepare and soften and till the hearts of the inhabitants of the city.

And so the soil was fertile, the soil was ready.

And so beginning with the king, to all of the inhabitants of the city, they dressed in sackcloth, they began to fast, they sat in piles of ashes, and repented, the entire adult population.

So, if we think about repentance of an individual or repentance of an entire community, it's important that a person receives aftercare.

If we think of a birth of a newborn child, if that child would not receive care after birth from the mother especially and the father and maybe the other siblings, that little, small, helpless child would soon die.

It needs care, aftercare, afterbirth.

And so, likewise, it is for one who has been converted and received the grace of repentance as well as all of us.

We need this continual care of the Gospel, of the living Word of God.

And if there is not this continual care of the Gospel Word, ultimate death will eventually happen and occur.

And history relates that apparently this city of Nineveh did not receive this care after birth, after this awakening, because 150 years later there is indication and sign that there was not any living Christianity any longer in the city of Nineveh.

And we can find cities and localities even on this continent.

We remember over a hundred years ago the fires were burning so strongly and fervently there in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan in the area we call Copper Country.

Today there's hundreds, thousands of people there at that celebration called FinFest which is coming to its conclusion right at the moment when we're speaking.

And there's many topics on living Christianity in the history of Lestadianism, but at one time there were thousands, tens of thousands of believers in that Upper Peninsula of Michigan.

And can you count the number of permanent believers who have their residence in the Copper Country any longer? Any longer on one or two hands?

Sad to say that that is the situation today in that area.

The candlestick of God moves from one locality to another.

So it is important that we have this continual care of the Word of God and the nourishment of the Gospel.

If not, we would be like in a ship or in a boat that is adrift, that has no anchor at all and is being cast to and fro without any sense of direction.

So we live in this world. We are surrounded by the threefold enemy and have this continual battle against the world of Satan, God, and the world of Satan, and our own flesh and blood.

But then the major portion of our text tells about Jonah.

After this awakening took place in this city, you would think that he would be happy and delighted.

When he went to preach and apparently the sermon was so powerful that at least 120,000 people received the grace of repentance and were converted and became a child of God.

But Jonah was disappointed. He began to mope. And he began to fear for his own proud ego.

That now I am going to be considered a false prophet.

Because he sat on the edge of the city and waited for the results of his sermon that in 40 days this city will be destroyed.

And this is what he was waiting for.

He began to look in the sky and look on the horizon waiting for fire and brimstone to come and land upon this city and destroy it and turn it into a pile of rubble.

And he was disappointed, unhappy, and actually frustrated and mad that this was not occurring.

So this is what our text in chapter 4 then tells us.

But Jonah was displeased exceedingly. And he was very angry.

And Jonah prayed unto the Lord and said, I pray unto you, O Lord, was this not my thing when I was yet in my own country? And that's why I fled to Tarshish.

Therefore, O Lord, take, I ask you, my life from me. I don't even want to live any longer.

For it is better that I would die than live.

I'm just going to be a point of mockery. A point of mockery and a laughing stock and be considered a false prophet.

And then the Lord said to Jonah, Do you think you're doing well by being angry?

So then Jonah went and moped and went out of the city and sat on the east side of the city and he made himself a little booth, a little hut.

And he sat under it to shiver, shade him from the hot, intensive sun of the mid-eastern climate.

And he was watching and waiting what would happen to the city.

But then the Lord God prepared a gourd or must be some fast-growing plant that grew up and provided shade for him from the intense sunlight of the mid-eastern sun.

And it was a good thing. It was a shadow over his head to deliver him from his grief.

So Jonah was exceeding glad because of the shade provided by the gourd.

But then God prepared a worm in the morning that rose up and ate the gourd.

So it removed that source of shade and there sat Jonah under the intense heat of the sun shining of the sun that day.

Then it came to pass that when the sun arose that God prepared a vehement east wind.

And the sun beat upon the head of Jonah.

And so he fainted and he wished that he would die.

And he said, It is better for me to die than to live.

And so did Jonah have the mind of Christ? Is this the mind of a child of God that when one is converted he becomes angry and disappointed?

Isn't it true that when even one individual repents there is threefold joy?

There is joy always in the heart of that person who was converted.

There is joy among the other fellow brothers and sisters in living faith.

And even the angels in heaven rejoice.

And we know that when there is repentance God changes his mind.

That God even would have changed his mind, was about to change his mind even before that first world and before he destroyed it.

He destroyed that first world with a flood.

But that disobedience and ungodly lifestyle continued.

And the people did not change their ways.

They did not repent.

If they would have, perhaps it would have been a different outcome.

But God would have changed the outcome for Sodom and Gomorrah when Abraham pleaded, if we can find fifty believers in that city, don't destroy it.

God said, yes, that I will do.

Fifty were not found.

He lowered the number again and again and again.

Finally down to ten.

Not even ten souls were found.

And so then God ultimately destroyed those cities with fire and brimstone.

But God's heart was such that he would have spared Sodom and Gomorrah.

We remember when Jesus and the disciples were traveling through the country of Samaria and the Samaritans and the Jews were bitter enemies with each other.

And as they're walking through the territory of Samaria, the sun was setting and they needed a place of rest.

They needed a place of lodging for the night.

And they went and knocked on the door of one Samaritan house and asked if he could be so kind to let them spend the night in their house because they have no shelter.

And the owner of the house basically shut the door in their face and told them to go away.

And the disciples became so angry that they turned to Jesus and they said to Jesus, well, that was such a cold reception from this person that, why don't you call fire from heaven and destroy this Samaritan man and all of the Samaritans for that matter.

Jesus turned to the disciples and they said, do you realize of what spirit you are speaking?

So he severely rebuked the disciples, the disciples for that attitude.

And so Jonah is basically kind of in a similar type of situation with a similar type of attitude.

And God needed to teach Jonah.

And again, he needed to be humbled.

And today's theme is have mercy.

God is a merciful God.

And we have experienced God's grace and goodness.

And we have been judged already in this time.

And how have we been judged?

There at the mercy seat at the throne of grace, we have been able to hear time and time again for our failings and disobediences and for our doubts and fears and sins.

You can believe, sins forgiven in Jesus' name in blood.

Not only once, not only twice, but as many times as we have needed to hear that message.

Jesus says not seven times, but seventy times seven.

Or then he takes the number away and turns it into infinity.

And he says as many times as a person comes, asks for the gospel, we wish to preach and proclaim that.

Glad tidings of Jesus Christ who has died for our sins, he has opened the way to heaven.

And because of his merits and through his mercy and grace, even today, just as we are, just as we find ourselves, even though we feel that we are great sinners and experience that we are wounded on the way in.

And patients in the hospital, this is an amazing household of grace where patients in the hospital take care of you.

And patients in the hospital take care of each other.

The patients take care of the other patients.

And this is through the glad tidings, the gospel message of Jesus Christ.

And even now we can remain believing.

Sins forgiven in his name in precious blood.

The power of the gospel, the merits of Jesus Christ will lift us, carry us and bring us one day to our eternal home.

In Jesus' name, Amen.

Bless us and keep us.

The Lord make his face to shine upon us and be gracious unto us.

The Lord lift up his countenance upon us and give us your peace.

In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Ghost, Amen.