2. Jonah

[Music] good morning and welcome back we are continuing we're on our second week now in a 12 week series on the Minor Prophets major themes from Minor Prophets and as I indicated to you last week we are coming this morning to the prophet Jonah of whom I want to make a couple of preliminary comments here I I mentioned to you sometime well last week that the Minor Prophets tend to be neglected and people tend to not have much familiarity of course with their content but the great exception of course is Jonah everybody knows about the story of Jonah in fact people that never read the Bible and know nothing much else about the Bible you know are at least somewhat familiar with Jonah and something about being swallowed by a whale and so we're coming at least this morning to a an account which has some at least passing familiarity to in fact there was a wonderful children's musical here a few years ago I'm sure something you probably recall it and they had that huge whale that came out you remember that did anybody were you here I remember that it was really wonderful and and the story of Jonah it's a very appealing especially to children I remember it very well from my earliest recollections of Sunday school the story of Jonah you know be thrown overboard and swallowed by a whale so we are at least in that sense coming to a story that probably all of you have some degree of familiarity with and some of you probably have a lot of familiarity with it but I'm going to try at least again to put this story into some sort of historical context a couple of things right at the outset here Jonah is often regarded as a transitional prophetic figure and usually the transition that's identified is from what's called non writing it's to writing prophets Jonah hangs right in the center there are as you know non writing prophets in the Old Testament Elijah or Elijah or others that show up we don't have a book of Elijah we don't have a book of Elijah we know something of what they said because it's reported to us and the historical material in the Old Testament but there's nothing that really distills for us the message as it were on the other hand there are writing prophets Isaiah Jeremiah Amos that we looked at last week others that actually leave us a document that innocence condenses and expresses the fundamental theme and content of that prophetic message Jonah is a little bit of both we have a book that bears his name The Book of Jonah you see and so in that sense he comes off like a writing prophet but at the same time the actual message that we find in Jonah reduces to eight words yet forty days and Nineveh will be overthrown you see and that's it and most of the rest of the story of Jonah is the story and not the message and in some ways the story is the message of course and so many scholars as they've looked at this collection of Old Testament especially minor prophets of view Jonah as having that kind of transitional or bridge effect there now that does depend a little bit on where we put Jonah in history and that's a rather major question as well but before we plow into that let's just have a word of Prayer our Father we are again grateful that you give to us the opportunity to gather here and we pray that our reflection this morning on this most interesting and fascinating character from history would once again be accompanied by your spirit that we would learn the lessons that we ought to learn and find the ways in which this story can be applied such that we will live lives more worthy of you and more obedient to your call we give you thanks for it in the name of Christ amen by the way I ask I had someone request that each week I indicate what we're going to do next week next week is Joel Joel who is actually right in the same neighborhood here these prophets were looking at Amos Jonah Joel Hosea will be the next week all of them come more or less at the same time and it's very difficult to say who came first so I'm treating them more or less as simultaneous even though in fact obviously there is going to be some differentiation of time among them to be a little more precise I'm assuming that Jonah comes about 20 years earlier than Amos but let me put the little caveat here at the bottom now there's a major question among scholars as to you know how do we date Jonah and the answer to that question really depends to some degree on how we answer another question and that other question is even more fundamental did this happen is this a real historical event did Jonah actually get swallowed by a whale you know or is this some kind of metaphor and depending on how we answer that question we're going to have some further answers to questions about when does this story show up now there are those who of course take the position they usually come from a more liberal perspective and that Jonah did not happen historically but is in fact a kind of parable this would suggest that Jonah is standing for in our minds maybe the people of Israel and his disposition toward preaching in Nineveh is reflective of Israel probably post-exilic Israel that'd be about the 500s or so BC their unwillingness to really play the role they ought to play to the Gentile world and how God was going to discipline them as he had disciplined Jonah and the whole thing could be done in a rather you know I'll say appealing kind of way and so I don't want to be too dismissive of that they would say that you know the story of the Good Samaritan is a parable Jesus said a man went down from Jerusalem to Jericho he fell among thieves and he tells the story as if it had actually happened in history but we actually know that Jesus is giving us a parabolic teaching here and probably is not reflecting a particular man or a particular incident and so these scholars would say well Jonah's the same thing it's kind of like some unknown writer in the Old Testament period giving us a parable okay so that's out there and if that's really floats your boat so to speak then fine you can go ahead and take that approach blessings on you my own disposition is that this probably is supposed to be taken by us as real history it comes in language that does suggest something of the historical genre in the Old Testament and so I'm going to assume that but I want you to at least know I recognize that there are alternative approaches and I'm not trying to be overly dismissive toward them it just indicate you've got to do something and I'm going to take the more traditional somewhat conservative approach here with respect to the historicity of fun of the story he had that had the opportunity this past week to be down to fuller seminary visiting our son Kyle who's in his second year Peter ran into Dale Bruner by the way he sends his greetings so hi from Dale had a nice little chat with him and but I just was interested in going to the library there couldn't quite stay away you know from the library and went in and found the section of the books that dealt with Jonah not that I was going to try to read them all but in fact I was rather daunted by what I saw there's about 20 books on Jonah some big fat ones yeah just on this one book so it has gotten a fair amount of historical scholarly attention through the years and and I've done you know obviously I haven't read all those books and I'm giving you much less than a fully profound analysis of what some have done with but at least this will give us a little bit of thought about it all right assuming then more of a historical setting which many scholars have taken this approach and I think we're on perfectly safe ground to assume this when did Jonah show up well one of the problems we notice right off the bat by the way Jonah is if you're using the Pew Bible I'd like you to do that if you would and turn to page 859 excuse me 859 still fighting a little cough here so I apologized 859 in the Old Testament the prophet Jonah and if you read the first verse you'll notice that it starts off simply saying now the word of the Lord came to Jonah son of Amitai saying go at once to Nineveh we do not have with Jonah the kind of thing we did have last week with Amos Amos said the word of the Lord came to me while you know Uzziah was reigning in Jerusalem and while Jeroboam was reigning in Israel and so we can do a little bit of triangulation and figure out you know where did this guy come in history and that really helps us when the Prophet will Telegraph to us something of the you know space and time issues that that have to do with his prophetic ministry Jonah doesn't do that he just tells us the word of the Lord came and off he is supposed to go to Nineveh so we're left more or less to our own devices to figure out now where does this show up we of course would assume that it would be when Nineveh existed that's a good opener isn't it and that that would be any time prior to 612 which is when Nineveh fell to a joint attack by the Medes and the Babylonians and some we're going clear back to maybe 1,000 so that you know narrows it down to about say four hundred years or so now beyond that do we have any help well there is one very interesting additional reference to Jonah which is found over in second Kings and if you just want to keep your thumb here in Jonah and flip over the second king is chapter 14 verse 23 this is on page 347 second Kings 14 23 in the fifteenth year of king a messiah son of joash of Judah King Jeroboam this was the Jeroboam we talked about last week Jeroboam ii who reigned by the way from 793 to 753 so kind of the first half of what's called the eighth century BC so that's the Jeroboam here King Jeroboam son of joash of Israel began to reign in Samaria he reigned forty-one years so that's the period of time very lengthy reign as we indicated last week Jeroboam was very successful really represented the pinnacle of achievement of Israel the ten northern tribes so then verse 24 he did what was evil in the sight of the Lord as did all of those kings of Israel they were all evil some of the Judah Kings were good but none of the Israel Keyes he did not depart from all the sins of Jeroboam the son of Nebat that be Jeroboam the first who took the throne in 930 you know some two hundred years earlier he did what was evil 42 Jeroboam son of me bath which caused his world to sin then verse 25 he Jeroboam ii restored the border of israel from leave oh hey math as far as the sea of Arabah according to the word of the Lord God of Israel which he spoke by his servant Jonah son of amid ty the prophet who was from GAF he fir now here's the only other reference that we have to Jonah but it is a critical one because of course it tells us now that Jonah came presumably during the reign of Jeroboam the second and since actually predicts that state of affairs which would come later in jeroboams reign that would cause us to infer that Jonah came earlier in the rain and so those who take this approach would put Jonah's timeframe probably about that ten-year period from 793 down to about 783 and that it's during that time he's probably having his ministry in Israel and he's predicting to the new king the young king jeroboam ii that notwithstanding his evil ways God was nevertheless going to bless Israel and that that you know should have been a cause for them to become grateful but in fact was a great set up for the fall because when they received these blessings from God rather than giving him thanks they began to become complacent and compromising and that's what provoked Amos that we looked at last week who comes right in the middle of that time of ascendancy and predicts the great doom that came only a few years later well now we're putting Jonah you see a little earlier so Jonah comes roughly 20 years before Amos right at the beginning of the reign of Jeroboam ii he had a ministry in israel but obviously also had our ministry which is really the substantial content of the book of jonah to the gentiles jonah is unique in several regards one of which is this he is the only prophet in the Old Testament who has given a primary task of preaching to a Gentile nation all of the other prophets in the Old Testament were primarily concerned with the people of God Israel and Judah Jonah is the only guy who sent to the Gentiles substantially you see that's the main the prophetic target that he has in mind many of the other prophets would address the Gentile nations that was not unusual but this was the only one that had that as his primary task what is the state of Nineveh at this time well I indicated to you last week Nineveh had a great day in the Sun of great violence great bloodthirsty ghastly practices I'm sparing your stomachs here I did I was tempted if you were if you were junior high kids then I'd give you all the gory details because you'd really love it but you know at our Ten our older years we don't like to hear about big piles of heads and you know stuff like that it's just really ghastly but nevertheless these these Assyrians were just bloodthirsty in their marauding kind of behavior and that reached a pinnacle in the middle of the 8th hundreds with a couple of kings one was astronaut sir paul and the other one was shaman these are the the third kind of the mid 800s and they just you know we're really bad and then they kind of plateaued and for a long time Assyria was continuing to pose a huge threat everybody was nervous everybody was looking casting a kind of a cautious anxious eye toward the east and the Assyrians in particular that great city Nineveh which would eventually become its capital they were worried about it and so through the late 800s into the early 700 and certainly into the early years of the reign of Jeroboam ii Assyria was the big dark cloud everybody worried about Assyria so that was really ad now they'd they hadn't they'd been kind of threatening off and on and doing these sort of raiding parties and and looting and pillaging and that kind of thing but they hadn't really developed an integrated Empire that didn't come till later but they really represented a very threatening presence that was very much on the minds of the other political leaders around the region including Jeroboam ii that's why it probably came as good news to Jeroboam when Jonah came to town saying God is going to bless probably Jonah himself thought that the way that God was going to bless and cause this prosperity to come to Israel would be by wiping Assyria off the face of the planet and so I think probably in the back of Jonah's mind he was expecting the Syria would you know sustain some great judgment from God and that's why he was really rattled when the word of the Lord came to him and said now go preach to the Ninevites you see that wasn't exactly the way Jonah had had construed I assume I'm speculating the significance of this message the last thing Jonah wanted was to see god be nice to the assyrians come on you know these were the people who really richly deserved God's most you know pronounced expression of wrath and so we have some idea why then Jonah would have the reaction that he did I might just indicate to you what's very interesting is that the king that came to a serious throne in seven eighty three which is ten years into the reign of Jeroboam ii and probably just about the time that jonah happens is king by the name of Shama Nizar the fourth Shama Nizar the fourth is remembered in the Syrian history as an inept and incompetent King as are his two successors who together represent about forty years of a Syrian history during that time Assyria virtually disappears from the radar screen of the ancient world and and deceased to be a threat now the reason he's viewed as incompetent is because he's being interpreted by later Assyrian historians who measure success by how much territory is conquered how many people are taken into slavery how much loot is recovered and for psalmanazar there was very little show he became a rather quiescent ruler along with the two successors about forty years of quiet in Assyria most unusual very hard to account for even secular historians who look at this just kind of puzzle over it and can't really explain it and and just leave it at that no one ever you know none of the hardcore secularists ever say well it's probably because Jonah came and preached but I think from the biblical point of view that's a very appealing hypothesis that it may be the effect of Jonah's ministry there that actually kind of closed these folks down for a while now Assyria came back with a vengeance in 740 tiglath-pileser the third who we recognize him from biblical history followed by Shawn manizer sargon ii astronaut sir Urbani Paul is in there and a couple of others and they they represent the great power of Assyria but that came a little later that was after this kind of Eclipse moment that may have been the result of Jonah's ministry all right so there's a little background let's go ahead and take a look at the Book of Jonah short enough we may be able to make it through most of it just reading and commenting as we go so if you have your Bible open to five or I'm sorry 8:59 beginning at verse 1 this is the book oh good well sure Thank You Dona Don's mentioning maybe we should think about where Nineveh was and I'll just tell you that Nineveh is the capital of Assyria and that whole region is part of what's called northern Mesopotamia which would today be Iraq so where we're dealing with that particular piece of real estate there which you may have noticed is back in the news lately I don't know if you caught that but anyway that's due east really kind of northeast of where Jonah was in Jerusalem so the call to go to Nineveh was the call to go east of course don't immediately goes west as we see here now the word of the Lord came to Jonah son of Amenti saying go at once to Nineveh that great city and cry out against it for their wickedness has come up before me this wouldn't surprise anybody it was a wicked City it was a wicked culture the most violent culture of ancient history without any question not to the Babylonians the Persians certainly the Greeks none of the others even come close to the just gratuitous violence and bloodshed associated with the Assyrians they were off the scale and so it doesn't shock us to hear that it was called a wicked City but Jonah but Jonah set out to flee to Tarshish from the presence of the Lord he went down to Joppa right on the coast found a boat going to Tarshish so he paid his fare went on board to go with them to three times Tarshish is mentioned away from the presence of the Lord twice away from the presence of the Lord is mentioned so you can tell the the Jonah presumably the author is trying to drive home the point here well this would be like being called to go to Seattle to preach the gospel and you get on the first plane to New York you know you're just trying to get as far away from that particular responsibility as you can Tarshish is somewhat a matter of speculation as to where it was but I think the best opinion is that it represented a major city in what we would now call ancient Spain wasn't called Spain then but from Jonah's point of view it was as far away as you could get that was about the extent of the known world from Jonah's point of view back then going as far west across the Mediterranean and that city of Tarshish would represent the outer extremity so the whole point here is Jonah is trying to get out of town in a big way and escape this responsibility why was he so reticent well first of all these were Gentiles and Jonah didn't mind preaching to his own people but there was a kind of inherent hostility as you know between the Jewish nation and the surrounding Gentile nations moreover it was the Assyrian Gentiles and they were the ones who were loved and hated as as gruesome barbarians of the worst sort and so all of those probably caused Jonah to be maybe not only uh you know in principle didn't want to preach to them but made been been a little fearful of going there just because of the horrific reputation alright verse four but the Lord hurled a great wind upon the sea and such a mighty storm came upon the sea that the ship was threatened to break up then the Mariners were eat or afraid and each cried to his god they threw the cargo that was in the ship into the sea to lighten it for them Jonah meanwhile had gone on down into the hold of the ship and had lain down and was fast asleep Jonah was at peace with the world see this is you you have to recognize how similar this is of course to another important prophet who was also sleeping in the bottom of a boat during the great storm remember that and of course that was Jesus he was also at peace it leads me to suggest to you that there are two kinds of peace that you can have you can have the peace that comes from being fully devoted to obeying God's call in your life to wit Jesus of Nazareth or you can be at peace in your determination to disobey God's call on your life you know I say that because I think we need to be cautious sometimes you'll hear people make the comment well I really have peace about this decision you know and and usually they mean that they have some sense God's inner confirmation that this is a good thing that they're proposing to do but I tell you I have people I've had people in my life maybe you have too who've looked me in the eye and told me they were proposing to do the most ghastly thing the most unspeakable act of infidelity for example and say well I really have peace about it be careful of peace you know peace is okay but peace at the expense of God's Express you know the standards in his word is a dangerous business Jonah was had great peace now he was no longer conflicted about whether he should obey or not obey he wasn't waffling he wasn't an unstable man who didn't know which way to go no he decided which way to go and the way he was going was away from God as far as he could and now he could get some peace so just just a little word to them why is there on that but anyway the captain came and said to him what are you doing asleep get up calling your God perhaps the God will spare us a thought so that we do not perish of course the captain here reflecting the ancient pagan polytheistic view every man has his God and and who knows what God is responsible for this horrific storm we don't know what exactly is it is going on but let's everybody call on our God maybe one of them will be able to come through and and calm this storm and rest lesson and so it was you know obviously just a matter of getting Jonah to pray to his God whoever that might be so presumably a Jonah comes up on deck and and then we have this little account the sort the sailors said to one another come let us cast lots so that we may know on whose account this calamity has come upon us so they cast lots and the lot fell on Jonah I appreciated Woody's comment this morning in the sermon about gambling of a broad perspective by the way with which I fully concur if it's of any interest to anyone but he was indicating and I would point out as well that generally speaking from a Christian perspective gambling has been viewed very very dimly and part of the reason for that is because as would he also pointed out and I like this being from a Calvinistic perspective we subscribe to the statement in the scriptures that's found in the Book of Proverbs which says the lot is caught cast in the lap but it's every decision is from the Lord so we are a little bit suspicious of those who talk about chance you know sort of uncontrollable things as if the universe had a little bit of just the unpredictable uncontrollable about it we think God is a little bit more sovereign over things and somewhat more in control of things and that even down to the outcome of throwing the dice is actually within his sovereign Dominion and that means gambling becomes a form of tempting God because in fact if God wanted you to be wealthy he'd make you wealthy you see and for you to sort of run an end run here pressing God at the point of his Providence for quick riches has been viewed generally is not a good got not a good approach to investing your resources although I won't steal the rest of Woody's thunder on that that was a great little story he told them but anyway in this case the lot was under the control of God's providence and it came out pointing steadfastly to Jonah so then the Mariners were afraid I'm sorry the next paragraph verse 8 then they said to him tell us why this calamity has come upon us what is your occupation where do you come from what's your country and what people are you peppering him with questions now because they assume that the answer must lie within this man and so they want to know what's what's going on and and Jonah gives them the response I am a Hebrew he replied I worship the Lord Yahweh the God of heaven who made the sea and the dry land then the people were even more afraid and said to him what is this that you have done for the men knew that he was fleeing from the presence of the Lord because he had told them so you know what I imagine happened here was that Jonah got on boat paid us the paid his fare was sitting around having a lemonade you know with some of the other passengers and so on before they embarked and are left on their journey and and Jonah may have just said I mean he may have been very candid with them I'm a prophet from Israel and my God told me to go preach to the Ninevites and that's the last thing in the world I'm going to do so here I am I'm heading for Tarshish you know they're probably all telling their stories and that would not in itself have precipitated any great concern they weren't necessarily immediately struck with the fact that this is the God of all creation and this might be some perilous kind of you know circumstance that this is going to precipitate but rather they're just hearing the stories and this guy's kind of odd but okay that's your story so fine what about you you know Joe and they go around the the state I imagine it was something like that where Jonah had given at least some indication of what you know the rationale was and the reason was for this trip as people commonly would they were beginning on a trip but now of course the whole thing comes back with a lot knuth a lot of new Thunder now that the law has landed on Jonah they remember those conversations and now they press him much more and Jonah begins to say well the god I worship is the God who created all this he's the God of heaven and earth he's the God of the storm he's the god of the sea he's the creator of everything and the very fact that they're facing this unprecedented storm begins to make them certain that or at least a suspicious that some of this may be true so verse 11 then they said to him well what shall we do to you that the sea may quiet down for us where the sea was growing more and more tempestuous and he said to them will pick me up and throw me into the sea then the sea will quiet down for you for I know that is because of me that this great storm has come upon you that's not the answer they were hoping for they were hoping that Jonah would say well this is the incantation this is the sacrifice this is the little religious ritual that you need to go through this is the little magic hocus pocus that will appease the deity and cause this storm to settle down that's what they wanted to hear you know for Jonah to say something so dramatic so unexpected as well pick me up and throw me overboard not only shocked them that Jonah would be willing to propose such a solution but also their own sense of you know justice and so onto him and their responsibilities for the welfare of their passengers all of that kicked in and thought well we don't want to go there so they verse 13 nevertheless the men rode hard to bring the ship back to the land but they could not for the sea grew more and more stormy against them and I think it began to dawn on them that this was not a normal storm that it was just beyond the reach of any experience they had and they were increasingly concerned that maybe what Jonah was saying was correct and maybe the solution he was giving them was the only way out so then this remarkable statement of verse 14 then they cried out to the Lord please O Lord we pray do not let us perish on account of this man's life do not make us guilty of innocent blood for you O you Lord o Yahweh have done as it pleased you remarkable thing here is Anna Jonah did not want to preach to the Gentiles this was the one thing he was trying to avoid least of all did he want to preach to the Assyrians but it probably was equal-opportunity disdain he didn't want to preach to the Gentiles generally speaking and now of course he's being pressed so that in spite of himself he preaches to the Gentiles and in spite of himself the Gentiles now are being brought to a disposition of prayer toward the God of Israel and crying out to him for some mercy in this unhappy predicament verse 15 so they picked Jonah up and threw him into the sea and the sea ceased its raging and again you just have to think of the time when Jesus stilled the storm and it was calm it was it had to have been one of the most remarkable moments in these men's lives is Jonah's body was thrown into the water that immediately there is this calm and again it just doesn't just leap to your mind what a parallel this is to Christ himself you know somebody came to Christ once from the religious leaders of his day and said well hey Jesus show us a sign and Jesus said you know an evil and adulterous generation always wants a sign it is not a mark of spiritual maturity to always be chasing another great display another great miracle another great sign that is not a mark of maturity that is a mark of corruption to always be obsessed with some new trick some new display some new something flashy and spectacular and evil an adulterous generation Jesus says seeks after a sign and I'll tell you the only sign that's going to be given to this generation he said is the sign of the prophet Jonah and he says because just as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the whale or the belly of the fish as you will we'll talk about that in a minute by the way so the Son of man must be three days and three nights in the belly of the earth well the parallel of course there is striking the Jesus would identify more with Jonah than with any other prophet and anytime does he ever actually take Jonah as it were is the old testament parallel to his own career but the the the parallel here is striking in this sense as well isn't it here's the storm the storm is obviously the wrath of God it's the anger of God it's the threatening rage of God against in particular the sin of Jonah but in some way you might say it stands for God's wrath generally against us Paul says in Romans 1 the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who suppress that truth in their ungodly behavior and in some ways that storm in the Old Testament tells us of the wrath of God what are we going to do to allay that wrath what are we going to do to appease the anger of a holy God who is outraged at our disobedience and wickedness you see it takes the death of one as it were cast into that rage into that storm and Jesus is nailed to the cross and as it were stands in the target area of the wrath of God on our behalf Veit vicarious atonement he absorbs the wrath of God the hell we deserved is poured out on him and so at his expense we have peace peace paul says having been justified by faith we have peace with God access to grace hope of glory and Christ in a sense fulfills what was suggested do you see that in this case of Jonah he's thrown overboard not that Jonah was a perfect sacrifice or anything of the sort but just the image here is so suggestive of Christ himself he's thrown overboard thrown right into the pit of the wrath of God as it were in that storm and immediately there's peace but of course Jonah doesn't have such an easy time of it so after this by the way verse 16 then the men feared the Lord even more and they offered a sacrifice to the Lord and made bowels I think this was true conversion you know here's Jonah he's going to be an evangelist like it or not whether he wanted to be evangelists or not he became one at the expense of his own welfare here these people really did come to faith they really did offer sacrifices they really did make vows I think there was really genuine conversion to the God of Israel at this point but the Lord provided a large fish to swallow Jonah and Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights all right now a little footnote here I just mentioned earlier was this a fish or was this a whale I mean this is one of the burning issues don't you agree one of those things that I've had people get pretty upset about this actually it may surprise you but and they'll say it doesn't say a whale it says a fish you know and so they get all incensed about that sorry well just I'm going to be a little postmodern for you at this point it's whatever works for you if you like whale it's a whale if you like fish it's a fish because in fact in ancient Hebrew vocabulary they made no sharp distinction between mammal and non mammal seagoing creatures and so it may have been a whale it may have been a fish it could have been either one the word is normally rendered fish and so that's the way we'll pursue it but if you like whale hey that's fine so in any event it was some kind of submarine that was ordained by God a living thing that that came and the swallowed Jonah and very important probably much more important is this though the fish comes along not as a form of judgment but as a form of salvation this is Jonah being rescued this is God's rescue mission and that great fish was the place from which Jonah found salvation and found a protection is he safety a refuge sometimes people think it was in the fish that he was being punished it was in the sea that he was being punished the C stands for the raging wrath but now is God's place of peace just like the Ark of Noah was a place peace in the midst of the storm or the Garden of Eden was a place of peace in the midst of a unordered creation so now that that's a motif that runs through the scriptures and here the Whale the fish comes along as a place of peace a place of protection refuge in the midst of the storm and it's from that place then that Jonah prays this great prayer I'm running a little short on time so I'm going to just leave that to your reading chapter 2 it's a wonderful prayer a psalm Jonah borrows heavily from other Psalms he obviously is familiar with the Psalms of David especially those storm songs that talk about the waves crushing me crashing over me Jonah pulls those together and weaves them in a unique expression but I think the most important thing to realize is that at the end of this song verse 8 and 9 he he really does show the signs of true repentance those who worship vain idols forsake their true loyalty but I would the voice of Thanksgiving will sacrifice to you what I have vowed I will pay deliverance belongs to the Lord then the Lord spoke to the fish and it's spewed Jonah out on the dry land so we have this recovery now Jonah is excuse me protected and delivered back to the land and then the story starts again second time through from the top verse chapter 3 verse 1 the Lord that the word of the Lord came to Jonah a second time saying get up go to Nineveh that great city and proclaim to it the message that I will tell you and this time of course Jonah is obedient so Jonah set out and went to Nineveh according to the word of the Lord now Nineveh was an exceedingly large city a three day's journey to walk across that is fabulously bigger than it actually was this is this is one point where I just have to be candid with you if you think that if the text actually means it took three days to walk across Nineveh that's not true it was not sixty miles across and that's about what you would make in a three day journey at least by ancient standards Nineveh was probably a city of about 600,000 and later in this book that actually is reflected as an accurate view an accurate number so we I think we have to ask ourselves what's really intended here someone said well what it means is it took three days to walk around it that's more plausible pi times diameter you know so that'd be about a third of the of the diameter would be the in other words the circumference be three times the diameter but again even that may be a little bit too large I think the better view and it certainly is born okay by the Hebrew here is that it was a city you could not adequately visit in less than three days I mean if I could put it to you this way how long does it take to visit Disneyworld you know well you could walk across Disneyworld I suppose in half a day or less but to really visit it you know it takes more time to actually substantially be there and the Hebrew here is certainly ambiguous enough to permit that scent and I have a feeling that's what's actually intended to really adequately visit the city of Nineveh would have taken three days we know where Nineveh was it was discovered by Henry Austin Laird in the mid 1800s a wonderful adventure kind of the Indiana Jones of the mid-1800s an Englishman turned kind of the world adventurer and he went and found the location it's been heavily excavated and many many wonderful things have been found there we know the basic extent of the city and that would certainly comport with what we actually know about the the size of Nineveh so Nineveh went there I'm sorry Jonah went to Nineveh and began to walk into the city and began to preach and he cried out this is verse of for forty more days and Nineveh will be overthrown very succinct message I don't know how enthusiastic he was I kind of pictured Jonah walking down the sidewalk yet 40 days known an end of o be overthrown yet 40 days and it will be overthrown I don't know you know how did he preach he may have been a little bit more a little more gussto than that I don't know if it was a more of Billy Graham kind of appeal or what but in any event it had supernatural as we see the people proclaimed fast every where great and small put on sackcloth when the news reached the king of Nineveh and again I'm supposing this is the King shaman ease of the fourth early in his reign he took the throne in 783 this may have been 782 seventy-one just early in his reign he rose from his throne removed his robe covered himself with sack cloth sat in ashes then he made a proclamation by the decree of the king and the nobles no human being or animal or herd or flock shall taste anything he proclaims a fast and so on verse nine who knows God may relent and change his mind he may turn from his fierce anger so that we do not perish we don't have this this is not found in some vast relief you know that's been dug up in Nineveh we don't have an inscription somewhere anything like that that reflects that it could turn up who knows I mean it's not like we found everything over there that there is defined it would be stunning if we did but nevertheless the overall external history of Assyria certainly suggests there was a great calming effect somehow or other that happened right about this time and I'm just guessing and proposing to you that that may very well have been the consequence of Jonah's own preaching this last chapter is most intriguing and again I'm just going to take a minute or two to summarize it for you Jonah as you can see verse 1 chapter 4 was not happy this is so perfect you know I think Jonah must have written this book because he's so hard on himself who else would have been as ruthless and critiquing Jonah as the author of this book but this was very displeasing to Jonah and he became angry he said he prayed to the Lord and said Lord isn't this what I said while I was still in my country that's why I fled to Tarsus in the beginning you know for I know that you're a gracious God doc got it you're always being merciful you know I was hoping for some fire and brimstone kicker I was hoping for judgment and here you are once again showing mercy slow angry anger abounding steadfast love ready to relent from punishing and so Jonah is so upset that God is being merciful isn't that just like us is is so human isn't it just like us when we resent God being good to someone else God blessing someone especially someone we don't like very much you know that by the way is a measure of whether you love someone or hate someone there's a Paul tells us in the New Testament rejoice with those who rejoice and weep with those who weep if you weep when someone else too rejoices and you rejoice when someone else weeps that's not a good indication of love than your heart for them you know and that's kind of what was going on here these people were rejoicing in the possibility of Grace and Jonah was weeping and so even though he had discharged his duties grudgingly he nevertheless was still troubled and irritated at the outcome so so much so he says Lord please take my life from me for it's better for me to die than to live this little following story I'm not going to read it but it you may know it's the story of Jonah builds a little booth and God causes a bush to grow over him and give him shade and Jonah is very appreciative of that but then the next day God sends a worm and the little bush dies and Jonah has grief because this bush has been has lost its life as it were out there and not only has the bush lost the benefit of its own life but Jonah has lost the benefit of the bush bushes life as well and then then God asked the question well Jonah you're showing off a lot of pity toward that bush don't you see this of what's what's wrong with this picture you have lots of pity for the bush you have no pity for this huge city where there's at least 120,000 people who are still children let alone the parents you see this probably 600,000 in the city and you have no pity for them and it really is left on it just hanging there there's no true conclusion it just leaves that you know mine's what have we learned from Jonah one if God sends you to met Nineveh you better go if God calls you to do something as much as you may disagree with the eye the task you best be about it - God can use any circumstance for his purpose even our disobedience can be used to accomplish God's purposes now that is no excuse that's no warrant for us to disobey we are still fully responsible but God causes even the wrath of man to glorify Him you see so God is never out of control here the universe I should say is never out of control out of God's control what else do we learn we learned that God has compassion and care for all of us that there's not some special class of us that are the you know peculiar recipients of God's goodness we're sitting here on the brink of you know war with Iraq and I mean no political comment whatsoever at this point simply saying this God cares about Iraqi people and you know while we may be justified and going to war again I'm not I'm not taking a position on that right now here but nevertheless I think we should all be praying deeply praying diligently because there's nobody who is second class in God's economy God loved the Ninevites so much so that he would send to Jonah a very reluctant foot-dragging prophet you see for it to care for those people and he cares for all colors of skin all ethnicity all of this this great globe is under his his concern and I think we learned that at least from Jonah and probably many other things that I haven't thought of and don't have time to mention here anyway let's I've run the timeout and I think we'll go ahead and just close it that at this point if it's all right let's let's pray father were grateful for the story of Jonah he reminds us of ourselves we have to say we look at his life and we see the deep humaneness not only of Jonah but of each of us we know how easy it is for us to be very reluctant and our obedience to want a second guess what your strategy is to think maybe you haven't quite thought it through and to want to find some other way and Jonah reminds us of all of that and yet we are grateful that he also reminds us that you're the sovereign God and that you will accomplish your purposes anyway it has to be done either through us or in spite of us you will get the job done we thank you for that we pray that we would be those who with full and open and joyful hearts give ourselves body and soul living sacrifices to you that we might be your humble servants doing those things that you call us to do in ways that are faithful and honoring to Christ we ask these things in the name of Christ [Music] you

Channel: Bruce Gore

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Keywords: Jonah, Jonah and Whale, Minor Prophets, Old Testament, Bruce Gore, Bible Study

Id: Bwei-zQ0aM0

Length: 52min 25sec (3145 seconds)

Published: Fri Apr 24 2020