"When The Worm Gets Your Gourd"
5/9/1995
Mickey G. Quinn
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"But God prepared a worm when the morning rose the next day, and it smote the gourd that it withered." Jonah 4:7. Just yesterday, I was talking with some dear friends and the subject came up that someone had said, "The Lord gave you a brain and He expects you to use it." Upon hearing that I jokingly made the comment that the Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away. Later on, while still talking with one of these friends, I was telling how that another dear friend of mine takes advantage of every opportunity the Lord gives him to witness to those around him and how that many Christians and even preachers will look at a person who all evidence indicates is lost and they will never mention Jesus to that person.
Just this morning, as I was reading my Bible, the Lord showed me a very good example of this very thing. I'm sure that most of you have read the book of Jonah, but for those who have never read it, I suggest that you do read it and you will see many of us in it. The book of Jonah only has four chapters to it, but they are four very powerful and practical chapters. The book begins with the Lord telling Jonah to arise and go to a place called Nineveh and to preach to the people of that city. It is a story of the greatest revival ever recorded. I say that because the city of Nineveh had a population of more than a hundred and twenty thousand people and the Bible tells us that every one of them were saved after hearing the preaching of God's man Jonah. Now I don't know about you, but to me, that's a lot of souls and the Bible tells us that the worth of just one soul is more than that of all that the world has to offer. Jesus Christ Himself said, "For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?" Mark 8:36. My friend, with whatever kind of mathematics one chooses to use, that revival in Nineveh equates to more than 120,000 worlds like the one we live in today and that's pretty rich by any man's standards.
But the preacher man Jonah didn't see it that way in the beginning and he did all within his power to keep from doing as the Lord had told him and going to preach to those people. No, Jonah was a Hebrew and quite proud of it and the last thing he wanted to do was to go and preach to those heathen. He tried his dead level best to not only not do what God had told him to do, but also to flee from the very presence of God. Jonah soon found that not only could he not flee from the presence of God, but that when God told him to do something and he chose not to do it, God could make life pretty miserable.
In the beginning of the book of Jonah we read where God tells Jonah, "Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and cry against it; for their wickedness is come up before me." Jonah 1:2. And after Jonah's fishing expedition where he found himself in the belly of a whale, we again read where God tells Jonah, "Arise, go unto Nineveh, that great city, and preach unto it the preaching that I bid thee." Jonah 3:2. Now, as I said before, old Jonah was a Hebrew and just couldn't stand the thought of stooping to warn those heathen of Nineveh of the wrath of God. But a few days and nights in the belly of a whale tends to do something to a man's pride and so he went and preached. And souls were saved. Lots of them.
But seeing all those souls saved wasn't very appealing to Jonah. In fact, he wasn't excited about it at all. Those people were heathens and he was a Hebrew. So the Lord so graciously let Jonah go out of the city to sulk for awhile. "So Jonah went out of the city, and sat on the east side of the city, and there made him a booth, and sat under it in the shadow, till he might see what would become of the city." Jonah 4:5.
Now, while he sat there sulking, it was very hot and the sun beat down on old Jonah and was about to fry his brain, but we read, "And the Lord God prepared a gourd, and made it to come up over Jonah, that it might be a shadow over his head, to deliver him from his grief. So Jonah was exceeding glad of the gourd." Jonah 4:6.
In the very next verse is when the Lord prepared that worm to get Jonah's gourd, which is the opening verse in this little article and the title. And again we find Jonah with his brain being fried by the heat. "And it came to pass, when the sun did rise, that God prepared a vehement east wind; and the sun beat upon the head of Jonah, that he fainted, and wished himself to die, and said, It is better for me to die than to live." Jonah 4:8.
It was then, while cooking Jonah's brain in the heat that the Lord showed him how that he should rejoice in those souls that were saved. "Then said the Lord, Thou hast had pity on the gourd, for the which thou hast not laboured, neither madest it to grow; which came up in a night, and perished in a night: And should not I spare Nineveh, that great city, wherein are more than sixscore thousand persons that cannot discern between their right hand and their left hand; and also much cattle?" Jonah 4:10-11.
Friends, Jonah was just as content and comfortable there in his homeland. He was just happy to be a Hebrew and one who feared the Lord. I can imagine him saying, "Ain't life good?". But Jonah wasn't concerned about those who were not so fortunate. But when the Lord commissioned him to go. And to warn them of His wrath to come, he soon found out the source of his contentment and his comfort and his happiness. He soon found out what it meant that the Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away.
In the belly of that whale, he found himself no longer content. He found himself lacking comfort and happiness. My friend, have you been commissioned to warn others of God's pending wrath? If God has saved you and forgiven you of all your sins you have. Are you content and comfortable and just happy to be saved and on your way to heaven and you don't care if the rest of the world goes to hell?
My friend, a church house full of happy saints is a very poor testimony to a lost and dying world. If you have received the wonderful grace and mercy of the Lord, please remember and never forget the source of your contentment and your comfort and your happiness. And when you see a lost person, you cannot look down on that person and say, "Let them go to hell." And when you see souls being saved, does that make you happy or would you just as soon go outside the city and sulk? Can you have more pity on a gourd or whatever comforts you, that you had no part in it's growth, than you have on that lost person who was warned about the pending wrath of God and who heeded that warning?
Please remember my friend, that it is God who gave you that comfort and aside from His great grace and mercy and love, that could just as well be your gourd that the worm got. Aside from the fact that God can make it very uncomfortable for those of us who refuse to carry out that which He has commissioned us to do, there are people just like me and you who are dying and going to hell every day and we are no better than they are.
My friend, we are all sinners and when God saves us we are still sinners, but saved by grace through faith. "For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God:" Ephesians 2:8. And there is but one purpose that we are left here in this wicked world. That is to warn others of God's wrath to come. "By Whom we have received grace and apostleship, for obedience to the faith among all nations, for His name." Romans 1:5.