Scriptures: Jonah 4, 2 Peter 3:9, 1 Timothy 2:3-4

The book of Jonah looks at first glance like a story with a happy ending. God calls Jonah--he disobeys and gets swallowed by a fish. When Jonah finally obeys and preaches God’s message, God moves on the hearts of the people. When God moves on the hearts of the people, blessings come in the form of an entire city turning to God. Jonah got to be a part of the greatest revival that is found in the Bible and history. Beginning in Chapter 4 we read this one word that caused Jonah so much grief and so much heartache and cost him so much peace and so much happiness. It is the very first word of Chapter 4--"But". In this final chapter of Jonah, Dr. Merritt unpacks the ultimate message of the book--that people are what really matter to God.

"The only reason Jonah was still alive was because of the grace and the mercy and the love of God, but he had forgotten that. When you stop being joyful over a God who loves, you will become a spiritual racist. Let me say this in a different way. The most selfish people on earth are people who don’t care whether other people go to heaven or not as long as they get there themselves." --Dr. Merritt

Keywords: Jonah, Nineveh, prophet, Old Testament, disobedience, arrogance, Tarshish, see, run, shade, Gerber, Ramon Dunn, whale