The following sermon was presented by the Reverend John W. Howe, Rector of Truro Episcopal Church in Fairfax, Virginia. The sermon was presented on September 23, 1984. The title is, God Hates Sin, But Loves Sinners. And the scripture reference is Jonah 3, verse 10, through chapter 4, verse 11. 

When God saw what they did, how they turned from their evil way, God repented of the evil which he said he would do to them, and he did not do it. But it displeased Jonah exceedingly, and he was angry. And he prayed to the Lord and said, I pray thee, Lord, is not this what I said when I was yet in my country?

That is why I made haste to flee to Tartnish, for I knew that thou art a gracious God and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love, and repentest of evil. Therefore now, O Lord, take my life from me, I beseech thee, for it is better for me to die than to live. And the Lord said, Do you do well to be angry?

Then Jonah went out of the city and sat to the east of the city and made a booth for himself there. And he sat under it in the shade till he should see what would become of the city. And the Lord God appointed a plant and made it come up over Jonah that it might be a shade over his head to save him from discomfort.

So Jonah was exceedingly glad because of the plant. But when dawn came up the next day, God appointed a worm, which attacked the plant so that it withered. When the sun rose, God appointed a sultry east wind, and the sun beat upon the head of Jonah so that he was faint.

And he asked that he might die and said, It is better for me to die than to live. But God said to Jonah, Do you well to be angry for the plant? And he said, I do well to be angry, angry enough to die.

And the Lord said, You pity the plant for which you did not labor, nor did you make it grow, which came into being in a night and perished in a night. 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, the word of the Lord. I want to come back to that parable in a few moments, but first I want to think with you for just a bit about the Old Testament reading. You might care to follow along. We were looking at the story of Jonah, and I think you'll find that on page 800 in the Bibles there in your pews.

You know, that's one of the best known and in my opinion one of the least understood stories in the whole Bible. People tend to laugh at it more than any other portion of scripture. I think the story of Jonah is the one that is ridiculed and dismissed as utter nonsense.

You know the story. The man swallowed by the great fish who survives to tell about it. People love to say there's something fishy about that story.

A friend of mine back in seminary used to say, who swallows Jonah today? The criticism seems to be that it's ludicrous. It's utterly impossible.

And frankly, I find it puzzling that this story should be centered out for that kind of criticism. Jonah escaping three days in the belly of the fish is certainly far less spectacular than Lazarus escaping four days in the grave, or the virgin birth, or changing water into wine, or feeding 5,000, or walking upon water, or Jesus' own resurrection for that matter. I mean, this really is a fairly minor story.

And as a matter of fact, you may know this, certain species of whale are known to swallow their young and hold them in their mouths during violent storms and then spit them out afterward safe and sound. National Geographic has reported at least two instances of that happening to a man, so it's really not much of a miracle at all. Now the timing is important.

but this really is about a third-rate miracle as miracles go you know the book of psalms says our god is in the heavens he does whatever he pleases and that's the real answer to miracles if you believe in god then miracles follow. He does whatever He pleases. And if He could spin the galaxies off and hold them in their proper places in space and if He could figure out how to redeem mankind it's really not a big deal that He should prepare a fish for one of His reluctant prophets.

A lot of people would tell you that this is really a parable and that may be or that at least maybe partly so. It does seem that there's something here about just as the fish swallows Jonah, so God's mercy swallows up his anger. Certainly the fish is not the main point of the story.

The main point of the story is that God calls Jonah to go to Nineveh, which was the capital of Assyria and it was an exceedingly wicked place. And God appoints Jonah to go there and pronounce judgment. No uncertain terms about it.

Forty days and Nineveh is going to be leveled. That's the message. And Jonah looks off to the east at Nineveh and he says, I'm going the opposite direction just as fast as I can.

Gets in a boat and heads west. And of course a big storm comes up. The sailors, being somewhat superstitious, are quite sure that somebody on board has offended one of the gods.

Jonah fesses up and they pitch him overboard, and that's where the fish comes along. But that's not the main point. The point is that after he escapes, God says, your orders haven't changed.

You're still to go to Nineveh. And Jonah goes and he preaches judgment. I mean the picture that we have of the little guy walking around with his sign saying repent is Jonah.

He comes and he preaches judgment. Gloom and doom, fire and brimstone. This place has had it.

Only the people do repent. And God withdraws the judgment. I wonder if this sentence struck you.

Verse 9 of chapter 3. Who knows, God may yet repent and turn from his fierce anger. When God saw what they did, how they turned from their evil way, God repented.

They repented. God repented. That may be a parable, the fish business.

I'm hesitant to dismiss it as such I'll just say that parenthetically the book of 2 Kings mentions Jonah as a historical person and Jesus himself on at least two occasions when he was asked to give a sign said no sign will be given to an unbelieving generation except the sign of the prophet Jonah as he was in the belly of the fish for three days and three nights so will the Son of Man be in the belly of the earth. That's fairly good authority, and I'm not really too ready to dismiss it as only a parable. But however you take it, whether historical or a parable or both, I think we still haven't come to the heart of the matter.

God repented. God changed His mind. As a matter of fact, that's the argument that Jonah has with God.

He says in the beginning of chapter 4, I pray thee, Lord, is this not what I said when I was yet in my country? This is why I made haste to flee to Tarshish. Now most of the time we read that and we say Jonah is rationalizing.

And we dismiss him, we laugh at him at that point. We say Jonah was fearful. He didn't go to Nineveh because he was afraid of what was going to happen to him.

Me? Talk to them about you? You've got to be kidding.

They'll swallow me whole. Just maybe, just maybe, Jonah is telling us exactly the truth. I wonder if it could be.

You say, well, you see, God changed his mind because they repented. Yeah, yeah, but that's not the point. The point is, God told Jonah to pronounce judgment.

He didn't say, unless you repent, you're going to be destroyed. God told him to go and pronounce devastation. And Jonah says, I knew that what you were telling me to proclaim was the exact opposite of what you were going to do.

And I was exceedingly angry at that. You told me to pronounce judgment, and you knew you weren't going to judge him, and I suspected it all along. Because you're a gracious God.

Can you imagine somebody arguing with God, I didn't go do that because I know you're gracious. But Jonah says, I took offense at that. Now I want to suggest to you that we're getting very close to one of the major keys of Scripture.

You may not have ever noticed it. The problem is that it sounds like God is going back on His Word. And Scripture says God is not a man, that He should lie.

The book of Hebrews says it is impossible that God should prove false. David said, forever, O Lord, Thy Word is firmly fixed in the heavens. And Jesus himself said, Thy word is truth.

So I pose you this question. How do you understand this? God tells a prophet to announce as certain something which is the exact opposite of what God is going to do.

How do you understand that? I want you to turn back to the book of Jeremiah. That's to the left.

Turn back to Jeremiah 18. And God gives us the answer to that question, and it may just surprise you. You may take offense at it, as Jonah did, or it may unlock something that you've never seen before.

The word of the Lord came to Jeremiah, arise and go down to the potter's house and there I will let you hear my words. So I went down to the potter's house and there he was working at his wheel and the vessel he was making of clay was spoiled in the potter's hand and he reworked it into another vessel as it seemed good to the potter to do. That too is a kind of a parable.

That's a living parable. A little object lesson, and then God interprets it to Jeremiah. Then the word of the Lord came to me, O house of Israel, can I not do with you as this potter has done, says the Lord.

Behold, like the clay in the potter's hand, so are you in my hand, O house of Israel. Now get this. Here's the key.

If at any time I declare concerning a nation or a kingdom that I will pluck up and break down and destroy it, and if that nation concerning which I have spoken turns from its evil, I will repent of the evil that I intended to do to it. And if, if, three times, if, at any time, this is the key, if at any time I declare concerning a nation or a kingdom that I will build and plant it, and if, fourth if, it does evil in my sight, not listening to my voice, then I will repent of the good which I had intended to do to it. Do you understand what God is saying?

he's telling us I typically announce something that is contingent upon your response and unless you understand that it's going to look like God comes off a liar time after time after time I typically I consistently announce something that is contingent upon the response of my people and I will pronounce judgment as if that's all there was to say on the subject. But if they repent, the judgment will pass. The other side of the coin is very sobering indeed, isn't it?

That I'll pronounce blessing, but if my people disobey and disbelieve and forget my covenant and turn their back on my statutes and my ordinances, that blessing will be taken away. and yes I send out prophets to say things that may not come true because my people may behave differently it's embedded in the character of God now you may not like that but that's the way it is and God says that's the way it is that's the way I am I do this sort of thing as a matter of fact I do it all the time I wonder if it has ever offended you to see the wicked going unpunished. To see somebody give a deathbed confession and then supposedly he receives the full inheritance.

You know, that's what Jesus' parable said. It's never too late. Right up until the eleventh hour, Somebody could turn from a life of total sin and have the same inheritance of blessing and forgiveness and life eternal as those who have been laboring in the parable all day in life for years.

Fifteen, twenty years of your life given to Jesus. Does it offend you a little bit to think that some sinner on his deathbed could inherit the same thing that you would inherit? If it does, if it does, you've got at least two things wrong.

Number one, you've begun to think that serving Jesus means earning God's favor. Has that begun to creep in just a little bit somewhere along the way? I've been serving Jesus for 20 years.

Doesn't that do anything in my status with God? No, not a thing. It's all grace.

It's all mercy. It's all forgiveness. You didn't earn a blessed thing.

You remember what Neal said in quoting the Scripture last week. Having done all, we're to say we are but unworthy servants. Pride creeps in.

And the other side of it, forgetting the goodness of God toward the sinner. See, the message is God hates sin, but He loves sinners. Sometimes, we can buy the first half of the message, like Jonah, and be so angry at sin.

We do right to be angry at sin, but don't leave off the second half. God hates sin. and He loves sinners.

And if He didn't, where would you and I be? It's all mercy. It's all mercy.

It's all grace. We didn't earn a blessed thing. Jonah hated sin.

He was offended that God loves sinners. Let's bow our heads together. thank you Lord for loving me in spite of all the wretchedness of my life Lord I would turn away from pride this day from any sense that because I've tried to serve you I've earned anything in the process.

And Lord, even as I ask You to let me burn with Your anger towards sin in this society of ours, so I pray that You'd melt me with Your love toward the folks who are caught up in it. Lord, give us a zeal for righteousness, but an even greater zeal for mercy. Thank You for Your tender care.

Lord, how we long to bring folks to You. Pray that You'd stir that up within us. For Your own name's sake.

Amen.