PT-4 “The Final Admonition” (Jonah 4:9-11)

 

SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 11//2025 :15 AM

My Worship Time                                                                Focus: PT-4 “The Final Admonition”

Bible Reading & Meditation                                                                   Reference:  Jonah 4:9-11

            Message of the verses: ““Then God said to Jonah, “Do you have good reason to be angry about the plant?  And he said, “I have good reason to be angry, even to death.”  Then Yahweh said, “You had pity on the plant for which you did not work and which you did not cause to grow, which came to be overnight.  So should I not have pity on Nineveh, the great city, in which there are more than 120,000 persons who do not know the difference between their right and left hand, as well as many animals?”

            I ended yesterday’s SD with the following: “The Lord reinforced His indisputable case by providing five features that reveal His compassion on Nineveh as far superior to Jonah’s pity for the plant.”  I will not begin to look at these five features through the pen of John MacArthur.

            “First, the significance of the city far surpassed that of the plant.  By reminding the prophet that Nineveh was the great city, God declared to Jonah that Nineveh had far greater value than any plant.  Earlier in the book, the Lord described Nineveh as “the great city” to declare His intention to reach the Gentiles (1:2) and to assert the value He placed on the souls residing there (3:3).  If Jonah, who did nothing to nurture the plant, could have pity on a piece of vegetation, then surely God who created the inhabitants of this great city was entitled to show pity for their eternal souls.  Unlike Jonah’s pity, which was based on what the plant had done for him, God took pity on the Ninevites despite their actions against Him.

            “Second, the size of Nineveh’s population was numerically far greater than a solitary plant. Jonah was distressed over a single shrub, but God declared that there are more than 120,000 people in the city.  Since the 120,000 referred specifically to children (see below), the population of the city was actually far higher, likely around 600,000.  In terms of sheer quantity, God had far more warrant to take pity on Nineveh than Jonah had to show sympathy for one plant.”  

            I will have to wait to find out how MacArthur explains that there were 120,000 children in the city with a total population of around 600,000 in Nineveh.

Spiritual Meaning for my Life today: God cares for all people, and saves those He has chosen to save, something hard for my mind to understand, but God cares for all people by giving them food to eat, and air to breathe, and we can see that He certainly cared for the people of Nineveh.

My Steps of Faith for Today:  I continue to trust the Lord in the way that He is handling the treatment that my wife in receiving, knowing that He is in control.

11/30/2025 8:29 AM

 

“Their Sustaining Motive” (2 Peter 2:2c)

 

SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 11/29/2025 6:10 PM

My Worship Time                                                                     Focus:  “Their Sustaining Motive”

Bible Reading & Meditation                                                                           Focus:  2 Peter 2:3a

            Message of the verse: “and in their greed they will SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR

My Worship Time                                                                                       Focus:  “Their Stigma”

Bible Reading & Meditation                                                                           Focus:  2 Peter 2:2c

            Message of the verse:  you with false words;”

            One may think that false teachers are ultimately motivated by a fascination with false doctrine, rebelliousness, or even a penchant for sexual immorality, however that is not the truth at all.  Now to be sure, they actively participate in each of those activities.  But people can do all such sins without being teachers.  Instead, the primary motivation driving false teachers is an unbridled love for money.  You can see this on the television when certain so-called ministries ask you for money.  I remember when I was a very young believer and had a physical problem that I will not mention, but wrote to one of these televangelist ministries and they wrote back to me and wanted me to send them money.  Weill I was a very young believer, but old enough to not send them any money.  There was one ministry that I did send some money to, and when the head of the ministry came to our small town he asked me to help his people bring some books into the place where he was to speak he did some things to my wife that she later told me about and he never got another penny from us.  I even went and talked to him about this and he denied it.  The term for greed (pleonexia) connotes an uncontrolled, covetous desire for money and wealth.  That is my experience with these so-called ministries.  Later in this chapter Peter describes false teachers as “having a heart trained in greed” (v. 14).  They crave as much money as possible (cf. 1 Tim. 6:3-5, 10) and are experts at bilking people in the church out of their wealth.  This is a standard biblical indictment and characterization of religious charlatans, and here is a list of them, but because I am using my new laptop and don’t have a Bible apt on it yet I will leave it up to those who read this to look them up on their own:  (Jer. 6:13; 8:10; 1 Tim. 6:3, 5 9-11; Titus 1:7, 11; 1 Peter 5:1-3; Jude 11, and 16).

            Now to accomplish their materialistic goals, false teachers will exploit people with false words.  MacArthur writes “exploit (emporeuomai) means ‘to traffic in,’ or ‘to realize gain from.’  Such men want to get rich from the people to whom they ‘minister.’  Although they claim to serve others, they are only interested in serving themselves, using false words to enrich their own pockets.

            “Interestingly, the English word plastic is derived from the term false (plastos).  In keeping with its etymological roots, plastic originally had the connotation of something not completely authentic.  After all, plastic items often look as if they are manufactured from another substance, such as wood, metal, china, and so forth.  Thus plastic at first glance ‘deceives’ consumers.  In a similar way, false teachers deal with phony doctrine.  Their theology is not really based on biblical truth, but only molded by false reasoning to appear genuine (cf. Col. 2:8, 20-23; 2 Tim. 2:14-18).

            “Satan’s goal, then, is to deceive as many people as possible, both inside and outside the church, by means of false teachers.  In contrast, God’s goal is to identify and expose such hypocrites.  Through Peter’s warning, the Holy Spirit makes it clear that false teachers are everywhere and have been since the dawn of redemptive history.  In response, believers need to be vigilant and discerning, taking to heart the apostolic admonition of Paul to the Ephesians elders:

“Be on guard for yourselves and for all the flock, among which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers, to shepherd the church of God which He purchased with His own blood.  I know that after my departure savage wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock; and from among your own selves men will arise, speaking perverse things, to draw away the disciples after them.  Therefore be on the alert, remembering that night and ay for a period of three years, I did not cease to admonish each one with tears.  And now I commend you to God and to the word of His grace, which is able to build you up and to give you the inheritance among all those who are sanctified. (Acts. 20:28-32)

11/29/2025 6:45 PM

 

 

PT-3 “The Final Admonition” (Jonah 4:9-11)

 

SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 11/29/2025 10:11 AM

My Worship Time                                                                Focus: PT-3 “The Final Admonition”

Bible Reading & Meditation                                                                   Reference:  Jonah 4:9-11

            Message of the verses: ““Then God said to Jonah, “Do you have good reason to be angry about the plant?  And he said, “I have good reason to be angry, even to death.”  Then Yahweh said, “You had pity on the plant for which you did not work and which you did not cause to grow, which came to be overnight.  So should I not have pity on Nineveh, the great city, in which there are more than 120,000 persons who do not know the difference between their right and left hand, as well as many animals?”

            I have to make a confession, and that is that I have bought a new laptop and in order to write my Spiritual Diaries on it I am using a new word processor which is sort of similar to the one I have been using, but there are many updates from the one I was using before, and so it takes me a lot longer to write my Spiritual Diaries that before.  Getting old and then trying something new causes problems for me.  I pray that the Lord will give me His grace to understand these new technologies.

            With that said I think that because I am behind this morning I will quote from John MacArthur’s commentary this morning.

            “But God pointed out that the prophet’s compassion for the plant was superficial and selfish.  It was superficial because Jonah hand not personally invested in the plant; he did not work and did not cause the plant to grow.  The term work conveys the notion of toil, referring to the arduous labor required to cultivate agriculture.  Jonah exerted no such effort to care for the plant, nor did he cause it to sprout up and flourish.  Likewise, the plant touched very little of Jonah’s life, for it came to be overnight and perished overnight.  Though it came and went in a very short time, roughly twenty-four hours, Jonah was nonetheless furious that it perished.  Incredibly, he did not care that the sailors (Jonah 1:6, 14) or the Ninevites (3:9) were about to perish, yet he cared deeply about a transitory sheltering bush.  The irony exposed the nature of Jonah’s selfishness and hardhearted hypocrisy.

            “Based on Jonah’s pity for a passing plant, God declared, “So should I not have pity on Nineveh?” The expression pity on Nineveh captures the entire theme of the book—the great care of God for undeserving sinners who are perishing, including those outside of Israel.  In familiar Hebrew fashion, God moved from the lesser to the greater.  Since the prophet insisted that his pity for a fleeting bush was reasonable, he was compelled to acknowledge that God’s pity on the immortal souls of people was far more significant.  The Lord reinforced His indisputable case by providing five features that reveal His compassion on Nineveh as far superior to Jonah’s pity for the plant.”

            This looks like a good place to stop as, Lord willing, we will begin to look at those five features that God’s compassion on Nineveh was much superior to Jonah’s pity on the plant.

Spiritual Meaning for my Life today:  I have to say that I am learning things, a lot of things about the book of Jonah that I did not really know were in this book, and one of the things that I am learning is that Jonah’s heart was hard, hard over the salvation of Gentiles.  That really is not an issue for me as I pray that the Lord will use my Spiritual Diaries to bring many to the Lord.  However there are other issues that this book has caused me to think long and hard about.

My Steps of Faith for Today:  I trust that the Lord will continue to use the book of Jonah to search my heart so that I can draw closer to the Lord.

11/29/2025 10:37 AM

 

 

 

“Their Stigma” (2 Peter 2:2c)

 

SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 11/28/2025 3:16 PM

My Worship Time                                                                                      Focus:  “Their Stigma”

Bible Reading & Meditation                                                                           Focus:  2 Peter 2:2c

            Message of the verse:  “and because of them the way of the truth will be maligned;”

            The Way of the truth refers to right doctrine and the accurate proclamation of the gospel (Acts 9:2; 19:9, 23; 22:4; 14, 22; cf. Matt. 7:14; John 14:6; Acts 16:17; 18:25-26).  But because of false teachers, and the spiritual wreckage they leave behind, the biblical message has often been reproached in the eyes of the world. As Lenski wrote:

“True Christianity is blasphemed, reviled, cursed, condemned by outsiders who see professed Christians running to all manner of excesses.  ‘If that is Christianity,’ they will say, ‘curse it!’  When many follow such excesses, outsiders are unable to distinguish and so blaspheme the whole ‘way.’ These false exponents seem true products of the way to them. (R. C. H. Lenski, The Interpretation of the Epistles of St. Peter, St. John, and St. Jude [reprint, Minneapolis: Augsburg, 1966], 307).”

By their deceptive teaching and immoral behavior, false teachers have maligned (literally “blasphemed,” or “defamed”) the gospel.  Of course, their mode of operation is consistent with Satan’s mission.  On the one hand, he seeks to undermine the church from the inside, by introducing deceptive heresies and false doctrines.  On the other hand, he seeks to tarnish the church’s reputation from the outside, by periodically unmasking false teachers before a watching world. When unbelievers associate the conduct of false teachers with the practice of the true church, the name of Christ is inevitably defamed.

            To counter these relentless, satanic efforts, the church must be doctrinally pure, and Christians must live the kind of righteous lives that make the transforming power of Christ believable.  With this in mind, the apostle Paul exhorted the Philippians, Prove yourselves to be blameless and innocent, children of God above reproach in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation, among whom you appear as lights in the world” (Phil. 2:15; cf Matt. 5:16; Eph. 2:10; 5:8; 1 Thess. 2:12; Titus 2:5, 7, 14; 1 Peter 2:9-12).

11/28/2025 3:39 PM

 

PT-2 “A Final Admonition” (Jonah 4:9-11)

SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 11/28/2025 

My Worship Time                                                                  Focus: PT-2 “A Final Admonition”

Bible Reading & Meditation                                                       Reference:  Jonah 4:9-11

Message of the verses:  “Then God said to Jonah, “Do you have good reason to be angry about the plant?  And he said, “I have good reason to be angry, even to death.”  Then Yahweh said, “You had pity on the plant for which you did not work and which you did not cause to grow, which came to be overnight.  So should I not have pity on Nineveh, the great city, in which there are more than 120,000 persons who do not know the difference between their right and left hand, as well as many animals?”

            Now in response to the question that God asked in Jonah he replied “I have good reason to be angry, even to death.”  Now previously when God has asked Jonah if he had good reason to be angry on account of His grace toward Nineveh, Jonah did not respond as seen in Jonah 4:4 “4 The LORD said, "Do you have good reason to be angry?" Here is that question, but as stated there is no response from Jonah.  Now in this case, Jonah openly claimed to have good reason for his anger.  He had greatly needed the plant, and he was deeply incensed when the Lord took it away.  The problem was that Jonah assumed his anger was justifiable—both when God extended His grace to Nineveh and when God removed His grace by destroying the plant that Jonah enjoyed to keep him cooler in the hot sun.  Blind to his inconsistency, the prophet was so convinced his position that he boldly declared he had the right to be angry at the grace given to his enemies and the grace removed from him, even to death.  As we compare Jonah 1:12, and 4:3 which both speak of Jonah’s desire to die they evidenced his sinful folly.  “12 He said to them, "Pick me up and throw me into the sea. Then the sea will become calm for you, for I know that on account of me this great storm has come upon you.”  “3 “Therefore now, O LORD, please take my life from me, for death is better to me than life."

            Now as I look at Jonah 1:12, the thought came to me that I wonder if Jonah would have said that he had sinned by running away from the Lord and confessed that sin to the Lord and was willing to go to Nineveh, would God have calmed the sea and then the sailors took Jonah back to where he left from.  I don’t know the answer to that question, but it did not happen so I just have to believe that Jonah’s heart was not in the right place.

            Now having heard these words from Jonah’s mouth, the Lord proceeded to explain all that Jonah had acknowledged.  The prophet not only confessed the goodness of God’s grace (since he was angry when it was removed) but also revealed that he had pity on the plant.  Now the term pit carries the notion of compassion and concern for another as can be seen in Nehemiah 13:22, especially toward those who are needy or destitute as can be seen in Deut. 7:16; Ezek. 7:9 and Joel 2:17.   We will look at all of these verses in a moment.  Now although arising from selfish motives and a skewed mindset, Jonah felt sympathy for the wilted plant.  Now as I go through this last chapter of Jonah it is easy for me to be upset with Jonah over his not wanting to see the Ninevites saved, but I also see the love of God as he is dealing with Jonah and not just causing some kind of judgment on him.  This is one thing that I can learn from his chapter, that God is patient and God is kind.  Now I will quote these verses mentioned above as I close out this Spiritual Diary for today.

Nehemiah 13:22 “And I commanded the Levites that they should purify themselves and come as gatekeepers to sanctify the sabbath day. For this also remember me, O my God, and have compassion on me according to the greatness of Your lovingkindness.”

Deut. 7:16 “16 “You shall consume all the peoples whom the LORD your God will deliver to you; your eye shall not pity them, nor shall you serve their gods, for that would be a snare to you.”

Ezek. 7:9 “‘My eye will show no pity nor will I spare. I will repay you according to your ways, while your abominations are in your midst; then you will know that I, the LORD, do the smiting.”

Joel 2:17 “Let the priests, the LORD’S ministers, Weep between the porch and the altar, And let them say, "Spare Your people, O LORD, And do not make Your inheritance a reproach, A byword among the nations. Why should they among the peoples say, ‘Where is their God?’’”

11/28/2025 10:20 AM

 

 

“Their Sensuality” (2 Peter 2:2b)

 

EVENING SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 11/27/2025 11:55 PM

My Worship Time                                                                                    Focus: “Their Sensuality”

Bible Reading & Meditation                                                                  Reference: (2 Peter 2:2b)

            Message of the verses:  their sensuality

            Sensuality is really a strong word referring to habitual sexual immorality and unrestrained, debauched conduct.  Peter uses the plural for the noun (aselgeiais).  He emphasizes that the false teachers’ sexual lewdness came in many forms and many extremes.  Now because they had rejected the lordship of Christ, their lives were characterized by unrestrained indulgence and lawlessness (cf. Matt. 23:28; 2 Thess. 2:7; and 1 John 3:4) which we will now look at.

“28 “So you, too, outwardly appear righteous to men, but inwardly you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness.”

“7 For the mystery of lawlessness is already at work; only he who now restrains will do so until he is taken out of the way.”

“4 Everyone who practices sin also practices lawlessness; and sin is lawlessness.”

They intentionally refused to place any restraints on their fleshly desires or their sexual escapades.  Their decadent behavior caused Jude caused Jude to compare their sins with those of Sodom and Gomorrah:

4 For certain persons have crept in unnoticed, those who were long beforehand marked out for this condemnation, ungodly persons who turn the grace of our God into licentiousness and deny our only Master and Lord, Jesus Christ…7 just as Sodom and Gomorrah and the cities around them, since they in the same way as these indulged in gross immorality and went after strange flesh, are exhibited as an example in undergoing the punishment of eternal fire.

            Peter certainly agreed with Jude’s assessment of the false teachers, as is seen later in this chapter of his epistle (2:7, 10, 14-14, 18-19, 22).  Unmitigated sensuality is a distinguishing mark of these spiritual counterfeits.  A teacher may claim to be God’s spokesman, but if his life is characterized by corruption, lust, and immorality, it proves that he is actually a fraud.

11/28/2025 12:09 AM

“A Final Admonition” (Jonah 4:9-11)

 

SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 11/27/2025 

My Worship Time                                                                             Focus: “A Final Admonition”

Bible Reading & Meditation                                                       Reference:  Jonah 4:9-11

Message of the verses:  “Then God said to Jonah, “Do you have good reason to be angry about the plant?  And he said, “I have good reason to be angry, even to death.”  Then Yahweh said, “You had pity on the plant for which you did not work and which you did not cause to grow, which came to be overnight.  So should I not have pity on Nineveh, the great city, in which there are more than 120,000 persons who do not know the difference between their right and left hand, as well as many animals?”

            I believe that the wind blew and the sun beat down not only on Jonah but also on the people of Nineveh, and while this was happening to this beleaguered prophet, the Lord then asked Jonah a piercing question:  “Do you have good reason to be angry about the plant?  I think of what Paul wrote “Be angry and sin not; don’t let the sun go down on your angry.”  It seems to me that Jonah was sinning because he became angry which is what the Lord is saying to him now.  It was earlier that God had asked a similar question to point out the prophet’s distorted understanding of good and evil, and this was written in an earlier SD when discussing verse 4:4, so you can go back and look at that discussion if you want to.  Here, the question served to correct Jonah’s errant understanding about grace, something he wanted, but did not want the Nineveh’s to have.  The question emphasized how perverted Jonah’s thinking had been:  the prophet was angry that God showed mercy to repentant Nineveh.  “10 When God saw their deeds, that they turned from their wicked way, then God relented concerning the calamity which He had declared He would bring upon them. And He did not do it. 1 But it greatly displeased Jonah and he became angry. 2 He prayed to the LORD and said, "Please LORD, was not this what I said while I was still in my own country? Therefore in order to forestall this I fled to Tarshish, for I knew that You are a gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger and abundant in lovingkindness, and one who relents concerning calamity. 3 "Therefore now, O LORD, please take my life from me, for death is better to me than life’” (Jonah 3:10-4:3).  We can see in this section we are looking at this morning that Jonah was just as angry that God had removed mercy from him.  Let us now look at Jonah 4:7-8 “7 But God appointed a worm when dawn came the next day and it attacked the plant and it withered. 8 When the sun came up God appointed a scorching east wind, and the sun beat down on Jonah’s head so that he became faint and begged with all his soul to die, saying, "Death is better to me than life." Jonah was irate that God killed the plant, and he was equally angry that God did not kill the people in Nineveh as seen in 4:3 “"Therefore now, O LORD, please take my life from me, for death is better to me than life.”  The Lord questioned Jonah in order to expose his selfish and sinful priorities, and to demonstrate that he did not in fact have good reason for this anger.  Previously, Jonah was enraged because God had extended His grace to the 120,000 of Ninevites, sparing them from judgment as we saw in verses 4:1-3, but then he was angry because God had removed His grace from him by killing an insignificant plant.  MacArthur writes “The point behind Yahweh’s question was to compel Jonah to consider whether it was better for divine grace to be extended or removed.”  And with that quote I will end this SD, but before I do that I want to wish all of those who are celebrating Thanksgiving today a very happy Thanksgiving, and as believers we certainly have much to be thankful for.

 

11/27/2025 10:14 AM