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Jonah chapter 4. I want to back up to the last verse of chapter 3 so that we make sure we've got our context set.

Here are these words. Jonah 3.10. When God saw what they did, how they turned from their evil ways. He had compassion and did not bring upon them the destruction. He had threatened.

So pick up with me in verse 1 of Jonah 4. We'll read throughout the chapter. But Jonah was greatly displeased and became angry. He prayed to the Lord. Oh Lord, is this not what I said when I was still at home?

That is why I was so quick to flee to Tarshish. I knew that you are a gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger and abounding in love, a God who relents from sinning calamity.

Now, O Lord, take away my life for it is better for me to die than to live.

But the Lord replied, have you any right to be angry? Jonah went out and sat down in a place east of the city. There he made himself a shelter.

Then it shayed and waited to see what would happen to the city. Then the Lord God provided a vine and made it grow up over Jonah to give shade for his head to ease his discomfort.

And Jonah was very happy about the vine, verse 7. But at dawn the next day, God provided a worm which chewed the vine so that it withered.

When the sun rose, God provided a scorching east wind and the sun blazed on Jonah's head so that he grew faint. He wanted to die and said, it would be better for me to die than to live.

And to Jonah, do you have a right to be angry about the vine? I do, he said, I am angry enough to die. Is anybody getting the point here this morning?

But the Lord said, you have been concerned about this vine. Though you did not tend it or make it grow, it sprang up overnight and died overnight. But Nineveh has more than 120,000 people who cannot tell their right hand from their left and many cattle as well.

Should I not be concerned about that great city? What an interesting chapter of Scripture. I want to begin by reading you a quote out of the new international commentary of the Old Testament. Listen carefully to this as it sets the stage for what we'll discuss today.

Jonah lurks in every Christian heart, whimpering his insidious message of smug prejudice, empty traditionalism and exclusive solidarity. He that has ear to hear, let him hear and allow the saving love of God which has been outpoured in his own heart to remote his thinking and social orientation.

Jonah lurks in every Christian heart, whimpering. I don't know if that's true or not. I could not say as I know many, many people with extreme integrity in the spirit full of the heart of Christ. I could not say that in every single Christian lurks a Jonah.

But here is what I will say. We're going to do our best to see if we can bait that thing and make it come out to play today if indeed one lurks within us. Is that fair?

So here's what we'll say. If this was just something we were to learn and it did not apply to us in the least, so be it we will learn it together.

But if there is a Jonah that is lurking in us, I pray somehow it will be so baited today. We'll be able to stare it straight in the face whether it is two inches tall or it is ten feet tall. Let's see if we can test for a Jonah in any of us.

As you look at these words in verse one, but Jonah was greatly displeased and became angry. He prayed to the Lord, oh Lord, is this not what I said? And then in verse three, he answers. Now, oh Lord, take away my life for it is better for me to die than to live. What is he basically saying in that verse? He's saying this. Forgive them over my dead body.

Have you ever felt that strongly about anything when was the last time any of us have ever used the phrase over my dead body?

I want to see if we can trigger that out this morning and see if we can read what is behind that feeling when we think to ourselves, I would rather die than see that happen.

Yours may not be the classic Jonah situation nor mine where we look at it and think over the salvation of people, I can't imagine that would be it. Who would we be so mad about God forgiving?

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