Running To Win 15 Minute Version

Guest (Male): Let us run with endurance, the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith. After Jonah preached, he got angry and depressed. Then God sent a sequence of events into Jonah's life to teach his wayward prophet some pointed object lessons. Today, the story of a plant, a worm, and a scorching east wind. Stay with us. From the Moody Church in Chicago, this is Running to Win with Dr. Erwin Lutzer, whose clear teaching helps us make it across the finish line. Today, Erwin Lutzer continues his series on brokenness, how God gets us to say yes, studies in the book of Jonah. Turn with us to Jonah chapter four, as we see God making sure that Jonah gets his point.

Dr. Erwin W. Lutzer: Notice what God does. God appoints comfort for Jonah. Here's a plant that grows up in a night, as we learn in a few verses. It grows up just very, very quickly in one night. Obviously, it was a miracle, a plant like that growing in the midst of the desert and a plant growing up that quickly. Probably what is known as the castor plant, which has great foliage and beautiful leaves that are as big as the palm of your hand. This plant grows up and it encases his shelter, and you can just see Jonah enjoying it because at last in the midst of this hot climate, God has given him an air conditioner. So he's very, very happy about the plant.

That's not all that God appoints. You'll notice it says now in verse seven, but when the dawn came up the next day, God appointed a worm. God said to this little worm, little worm, here you are. Do you see that plant over there? I want you to saw it down, work at it all night, but get the thing sawed down because I'm appointing you to bug Jonah. So God talks to this little worm, and the little worm comes and he begins to work on this plant, and by morning he has it down. God appoints our comforts, God also appoints our disappointments and our losses.

Jonah is supposed to learn that lesson. So the little worm comes along and by morning the plant is down, and soon the sun is going to rise and it's going to become very, very hot. Jonah is going to become very, very angry. Just as he was exceedingly glad for the plant, he is going to become very, very angry because he's going to have a death wish in just a verse or two again, saying, I want to die. Just get me out of this. I would rather die than deal with a God whom I can't change and whose will I oppose. It's going to turn out that this plant was really his god, and meant more to him than the will of God.

It's amazing what happens when you take away people's air conditioners. My wife and I live in a condo complex where you either have heat, as you do during the winter, or you can have cold air, air conditioning, during the summer, but the whole apparatus has to be changed over a day or two. So they try to find a good time in perhaps near the end of April and then another time in the fall when they make this change. They don't change it into air conditioning until probably somewhere around the end of April, the beginning of May.

But one April, two or three years ago, it became about 85 degrees before April was over. You should just see how angry some of these pleasant and wonderful people became. Some of them swore, some of them cursed, some of them threatened the administration because they didn't have their air conditioner. These are nice people who open doors for you and who'll help you carry in groceries if you need it. You're saying is all this stuff coming from people who are so nice? No wonder the little girl prayed, oh God, make all bad people good, and please make the good people nice. Isn't that a great prayer?

If you had gone to these people and said, hey, by the way, did you know that 25,000 children died today because of malnutrition, which is approximately the number that die every day because of that? Would that have mattered? I don't care about whether or not the kids die, get me an air conditioner. I can't stand it. Have you ever noticed that God not only appoints our comforts, but he also appoints our discomforts and our disappointments? The very thing that was bringing Jonah happiness is the very thing that God takes away because what God wants to do is to get at the heart of this guy. The reason for these appointments is God is saying, Jonah, I am putting a mirror here so that you can see yourself. I want to take this mirror and shove it right up to your face so that you can see what's in your heart.

God's not through with him. We know that Jonah is going to have a bad day with this plant that has withered now, thanks to this little worm. So God is saying, oh Jonah, so you think you're hot? Guess what. Verse eight, when the sun arose, God appointed a scorching east wind and the sun beat down on the head of Jonah so that he was faint, and once again, he asked that he might die. It is better for me to die than to live. God had this wind come like a kiln.

Nineveh is actually not too far from Baghdad. As a matter of fact, when you're looking on the map and you often see that there have been flashpoints of resistance in Mosul, directly across the Tigris River from that city is Nineveh. That's where it is. Our son-in-law, who survived a summer in Baghdad, said that there was one day when it got nearly 140 degrees. The people could not understand how the American soldiers were able to manage it with all of their equipment. That's understandable. I wonder too how they managed with all of their equipment. So this is the area now and God sends this scorching east wind to Jonah and says, well, Jonah, how do you like that?

God appoints our comforts, he appoints our disappointments, our losses, and he also appoints our trials. Jonah is not handling this trial very well. Parenthetically and theologically, you'll notice that all are equally appointed by God. Do we have comforts today? You believe that God gives us comforts. We have comforts as human beings in friendships, in love, in opportunity, in clothes and houses, and all of the things that we enjoy. Those comforts are God-given. They are appointed by God. But so are our losses appointed by God, our disappointments, those things that we cannot control that just happen, situations over which we have absolutely no control that God brings into our life probably for the same reason that he brought these things into the life of Jonah.

Then God appoints also those scorching east winds when we are almost about to die and to see what is in our hearts. It's only these events that really show what's in there. It's not all the niceties, all the pleasantries when everything is going well. It's how do you handle adversity? But each are equally appointed by God. I'm sure that Jonah was very angry with the worm. I'm sure that he had some very choice words for the wind. But actually, no use getting angry at the worm, no use getting angry at the wind, because the worm and the wind are both sent by God. It's God that stands behind these events.

God again begins a questioning. He picks up the therapy and says, I wonder if you're willing to listen to my question now. You'll notice there in verse nine, God continues the dialogue. But God said to Jonah, do you well to be angry for the plant? This time he answered God. The first time God asked the question, it was do you have a right to be angry because the Ninevites repented? Jonah didn't answer that question, but God says to him now, do you do well to be angry for the plant? Without even skipping a beat, he says, yes, I do well to be angry, angry enough to die.

Think for a moment what it is that Jonah is really saying. He's saying, I have a right to the comforts that God gives me. I have a right to my air conditioner, I have a right to be comfortable and not to be in this heat. But I am denying the compassion of God that brings me those comforts. I am denying the right of other people to experience that compassion. I deny the rights of the Ninevites' eternal comfort. I would rather see them burn in hell than to have me burn under the sunlight here in a temporary way without a good booth and without a plant and with a scorching east wind. You can see here that Jonah is in the midst of this dilemma and he does not get the lesson at this point that God is trying to teach him.

God goes on and he says, Jonah, that's a lesson in comforts now. What I want to do is to give you a lesson in the whole business of compassion. So God picks it up in verse 10. And the Lord said to him, you pity the plant for which you did not labor. Did you deserve the plant? Did you create it? By the way, do we deserve our money? You say we earned it. Oh, really? Did you? Who gave you the ability, the brains, and the opportunities to be born where you were, to be gifted the way in which you are? You mean to say you have a right to this? Believe me, you and I have no rights to any of this.

The Lord says, you have pity for the plant for which you did not labor, you did not make it grow, which came into being in a night and perished in a night. Now comes the really big question. And should not I pity Nineveh, that great city in which there are more than 120,000 persons who do not know their right hand from their left and also much cattle? He may be talking here about children, 120,000 children. If you think about that and you realize they had parents, you can begin to multiply out how big the city of Nineveh really was. God says, you had compassion on the plant and you have no compassion for people? What is this?

My friend, this is Pastor Lutzer. I have to smile as I consider what I have just said in this message. Isn't that true of all of us? We are concerned about ourselves, but we are oftentimes not concerned about others. I trust that God uses this ministry to rebuke all of us.

I'm holding in my hands a book entitled Dory: The Girl Nobody Loved. Now, this is the last week we're making it available for you, but it is a story of God's grace in the midst of abuse, in the midst of not being understood. It's a story of God's grace after deep rejection as a child. I know it's going to bless you. I reread it recently, and it was my privilege to write this with Dory. Even as I reread the story, tears came to my eyes, but through those tears, I saw the wonder of God's grace taking a rejected little child and she eventually became a missionary with her husband in New Guinea, opening that country to the gospel of Jesus Christ. Never underestimate what God is willing to do for all those who are willing to say yes to him, despite their past, believing him for the future.

Guest (Male): That was Erwin Lutzer with Part 2 of Death To Self-Justification, the last message in his series on brokenness, how God gets us to say yes. Next time on Running To Win, join us as we probe our personal motives and feel the piercing gaze of God on our own hearts. Dory: The Girl Nobody Loved is a heart-wrenching story of how God took a child, abandoned in an orphanage, and gave her a whole new life. Written by Pastor Lutzer, this book will demonstrate that there is hope, even when no hope is visible. Dory: The Girl Nobody Loved will be sent to you as our gift when you give a gift of any amount to support Running To Win. Call us at 1-800-215-5001. That's 1-800-215-5001. Online, go to offerrtw.com. That's offerrtw.com. Or write to Running To Win, Moody Church, 1635 North LaSalle Boulevard, Chicago, Illinois, 60614. Running To Win is a ministry of the Moody Church.