Sermon Three: The Old Testament Prophets and the World of 2005
Jonah 1-4
God’s Word on Evangelism
Introduction
As a way of acknowledging the All-Star forward’s impact, Nike has hung a billboard of James on the side of a building near Quicken Loans Arena, home of the Cavaliers that is 110 feet high and 212 feet wide.
On the massive mesh banner, James soars toward an unseen basket with his right arm extended over his head, ready to deliver one of his signature slam dunks. Next to the sprawling reproduction of the photograph taken during his rookie season are the words: "WE ARE ALL WITNESSES."
But properly speaking, the Bible has called us to be witnesses—but not spectators. You might recall that I preached a sermon a while back and before I did I showed you a clip from a Star Wars film that showed the difference between trusting in false power and trusting the Spirit: One impacts on the surface and the other turns worlds inside out. It’s the same here, I am not content to be a spectator sitting and watching. Nor is that what we are called to. I will be one of those who plays and participates—being a witness, being a martyr for the Cause of Christ and not for the cause of self.
When Jesus said to the apostles in Acts 1: You will be my witnesses, he was also saying, ‘You can be my witnesses’ and ‘You shall be my witnesses,’ and ‘You had better be my witnesses.’” Because, “How can they call on the one they have not believed in? And how can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone preaching to them? And how can they preach unless they are sent? As it is written, ‘How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news!’” (Romans 10:14-15)
Today, we will look at the story of Jonah and talk about the beautiful feet of those who are sent, of those who are sent, of those who share the Gospel.
The word of the LORD came to Jonah son of Amittai: “Go to the great city of Nineveh and preach against it, because its wickedness has come up before me.” But Jonah ran away from the LORD and headed for Tarshish. He went down to Joppa, where he found a ship bound for that port. After paying the fare, he went aboard and sailed for Tarshish to flee from the LORD. Then the LORD sent a great wind on the sea, and such a violent storm arose that the ship threatened to break up. All the sailors were afraid and each cried out to his own god. And they threw the cargo into the sea to lighten the ship. But Jonah had gone below deck, where he lay down and fell into a deep sleep. The captain went to him and said, “How can you sleep? Get up and call on your god! Maybe he will take notice of us, and we will not perish.” Then the sailors said to each other, “Come, let us cast lots to find out who is responsible for this calamity.” They cast lots and the lot fell on Jonah. So they asked him, “Tell us, who is responsible for making all this trouble for us? What do you do? Where do you come from? What is your country? From what people are you?” He answered, “I am a Hebrew and I worship the LORD, the God of heaven, who made the sea and the land.” This terrified them and they asked, “What have you done?” (They knew he was running away from the LORD, because he had already told them so.) The sea was getting rougher and rougher. So they asked him, “What should we do to you to make the sea calm down for us?” “Pick me up and throw me into the sea,” he replied, “and it will become calm. I know that it is my fault that this great storm has come upon you.” Instead, the men did their best to row back to land. But they could not, for the sea grew even wilder than before. Then they cried to the LORD, “O LORD, please do not let us die for taking this man’s life. Do not hold us accountable for killing an innocent man, for you, O LORD, have done as you pleased.” Then they took Jonah and threw him overboard, and the raging sea grew calm. At this the men greatly feared the LORD, and they offered a sacrifice to the LORD and made vows to him. But the LORD provided a great fish to swallow Jonah, and Jonah was inside the fish three days and three nights.
Walter Kaiser writes, “The text was written to help others avoid the trap Jonah fell into and to encourage their adoption of YHWH’s Heart for the nations—yes, even one’s most brutal enemies!” (Mission in the Old Testament, 69; for all Kaiser quotes.)
I think Jonah asked to be thrown into the sea not because he hoped to be swallowed by a fish or a whale or a giant squid or anything else. I think he asked to be thrown in because he wanted to die. This was his cry throughout the book and especially, as we shall see, at the end of the book. He would rather be dead than to go to those people.
Chapter 1, as I see it is dominated by one thought: Jonah’s Fleeing. Jonah was asked, or commanded, to do something for God and his first response was disobedience—his first response was to flee! He would rather sleep on a wave swept, wind-tossed boat than to go where the Lord commanded him to go. He would rather endanger the lives of the ‘innocent’ sailors than to obey the Lord. We learn he would rather be dead than to obey, “Pick me up and throw me into the sea,” but I suspect that his was no noble act. I think his wish to be thrown into the sea was simply one more way to get out of going.
I suppose the Lord could easily enough carried the entire ship back to land. But Jonah, thinking he would soon be dead, found out that the Lord had another mode of transportation. He was swallowed by a great fish. I think the Lord was far more concerned about Jonah’s level of obedience than he was Jonah’s objections to who should hear the Gospel and who should not. Chapter one conveys perhaps two thoughts expressed negatively and positively. First, the Lord says, “Jonah, care about others who are lost.” And second, Jonah says, “Lord, I don’t care about others who are lost.”
And it does make one wonder, doesn’t it? That is, how often have we felt the promptings of the Spirit saying, “Go here, go there, witness to this person and then we right it off.” I think anymore we are downright terrified to call someone on the carpet for their sin. We find all sorts of ways to allow a person to do what they want to do without ever saying, ‘Your behavior is heading you to hell because it is offensive to God, contrary to His Word. You need to repent.’ We are afraid that, perhaps like Jonah, they might do it. Or we are just afraid. We find all sorts of ways to get around it: Well, they will change, well they are confused, well they just need doctor Phil, Well, they are not wicked or evil they are just unsaved, Well, they are just childish, and so on and so forth. But part of being an obedient witness for God is to testify to his righteousness as well as his wrath, his repugnance for sin as well as his love for sinners, his grace as well as his—well, my point is how can we properly testify to the death of Jesus if people have no idea why Jesus died in the first place?
* * *
From inside the fish Jonah prayed to the LORD his God. He said:
“In my distress I called to the LORD,
and he answered me.
From the depths of the grave I called for help,
and you listened to my cry.
You hurled me into the deep,
into the very heart of the seas,
and the currents swirled about me;
all your waves and breakers
swept over me.
I said, ‘I have been banished
from your sight;
yet I will look again
toward your holy temple.’
The engulfing waters threatened me,
the deep surrounded me;
seaweed was wrapped around my head.
To the roots of the mountains I sank down;
the earth beneath barred me in forever.
But you brought my life up from the pit,
O LORD my God.
“When my life was ebbing away,
I remembered you, LORD,
and my prayer rose to you,
to your holy temple.
“Those who cling to worthless idols
forfeit the grace that could be theirs.
But I, with a song of thanksgiving,
will sacrifice to you.
What I have vowed I will make good.
Salvation comes from the LORD.”
And the LORD commanded the fish, and it vomited Jonah onto dry land.
Jonah’s prayer is, I think, typical. I’m not being critical, but the point is simply this: Lord, look how much I care for myself. Jonah even gets in a jab at the Ninevites while he is in there: “Those who cling to worthless idols forfeit the grace that could be theirs. But I…”
The Lord was not finished with Jonah just yet. We must not become to smug about our own salvation that we forget about others. Part of the point of Jonah’s story is to awaken those who had become complacent about God’s love and compassion for the Lost. But if it is true that God uses missions to, in the words of one writer, ‘provoke those who claim to be his people to jealousy and repentance’ then it is fair to ask if it is working on us?
Or does he need to? Are we so self-centered and smug and complacent that we couldn’t care less what is going on around the world? Or next door? Are we so comfortable in our own world that we totally forget about what others are doing in theirs? Do we think of others in a context of their relationship or lack thereof to God? Are we concerned about those who fail to repent and turn to God and in consequence go to hell? Do we even believe in hell anymore? Or are we like Jonah who mentions himself 24 times in this short prayer to God?
* * *
Then the word of the LORD came to Jonah a second time: “Go to the great city of Nineveh and proclaim to it the message I give you.” Jonah obeyed the word of the LORD and went to Nineveh. Now Nineveh was a very important city--a visit required three days. On the first day, Jonah started into the city. He proclaimed: “Forty more days and Nineveh will be overturned.” The Ninevites believed God. They declared a fast, and all of them, from the greatest to the least, put on sackcloth. When the news reached the king of Nineveh, he rose from his throne, took off his royal robes, covered himself with sackcloth and sat down in the dust. Then he issued a proclamation in Nineveh: “By the decree of the king and his nobles: Do not let any man or beast, herd or flock, taste anything; do not let them eat or drink. But let man and beast be covered with sackcloth. Let everyone call urgently on God. Let them give up their evil ways and their violence. Who knows? God may yet relent and with compassion turn from his fierce anger so that we will not perish.” When God saw what they did and how they turned from their evil ways, he had compassion and did not bring upon them the destruction he had threatened.
I think Jonah’s adventures inside the fish were a picture of what life would be for him. He spent three days and nights inside a great fish and later he would visit a great city that required three days to visit. Ninevah—a city 500-700 miles from Jerusalem, a city with ‘1,500 towers spaced along the walls rising up to 200 feet high, it contained 120,000 children as well. It was regarded as the height of civilization of that day.’ (Kaiser, 70)
Jonah finally relents. The theme of this chapter is, “Lord, I will tell them how much you care.” He will obey the Lord—begrudgingly. And the Lord shows Jonah something amazing: Ninevah repents of their sin. Everyone from greatest to least, from adult to child, human to animal—yes even the beasts join in the fast—everyone repents and turns to God.
I got to thinking: What would happen if we actually told the truth about sin? What would happen if we actually made it a point to say, “That is sin and apart from your repentance you are going to hell.” I know, the experts in church growth tell us that this is not quite the way to grow a church. It is important that people understand that we are inclusive and open minded and we do not judge because the Bible says not to. And besides, if we told someone they were sinning they might not come back to the worship on Sunday and they might get offended. Or, I wonder if they might actually repent?
But the truth is probably that we are so concerned about not offending sinners that offend God because we allow people to remain in their sin. But how are we letting people know that the Lord cares for them if we allow them to persist in their ways that are offensive to Him and keep them separated from him? Jonah had to go up to Ninevah and say to them, “The Lord is concerned for you. If you understand His concern—which is why I am hear—then you will repent of your sins.” Of all the things Jonah could have said to them all he had to say was one word, “Repent.” I honestly think there is a place in the work of the Church to tell people, “Repent.”
* * *
But Jonah was greatly displeased and became angry. He prayed to the LORD, “O LORD, is this not what I said when I was still at home? That is why I was so quick to flee to Tarshish. I knew that you are a gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger and abounding in love, a God who relents from sending calamity. Now, O LORD, take away my life, for it is better for me to die than to live.” But the LORD replied, “Have you any right to be angry?” Jonah went out and sat down at a place east of the city. There he made himself a shelter, sat in its shade and waited to see what would happen to the city. Then the LORD God provided a vine and made it grow up over Jonah to give shade for his head to ease his discomfort, and Jonah was very happy about the vine. But at dawn the next day God provided a worm, which chewed the vine so that it withered. When the sun rose, God provided a scorching east wind, and the sun blazed on Jonah’s head so that he grew faint. He wanted to die, and said, “It would be better for me to die than to live.” But God said to Jonah, “Do you have a right to be angry about the vine?” “I do,” he said. “I am angry enough to die.” But the LORD said, “You have been concerned about this vine, though you did not tend it or make it grow. It sprang up overnight and died overnight. But Nineveh has more than a hundred and twenty thousand people who cannot tell their right hand from their left, and many cattle as well. Should I not be concerned about that great city?”
Walter Kaiser writes, “It is put as a rhetorical question to Jonah, but as a direct one to all who ever read this book. All expostulations against Jonah being a missionary book are vain in light of the force of the questions that come at the end of the book. The question that the prophet and the reader of this book are left with is this: ‘Should I not be concerned about that great city?’” (70)
Now we get back to the heart of the matter. Jonah very much reminds me of that older brother Jesus told us about in the Parable of the Prodigal Son. He stayed on the outside waiting to see what would happen. Jonah is so unhappy we are told four times that he would rather have died or be dead than to suffer what he was suffering. He wanted Ninevah to get what they wanted and he sat and waited and waited but it never came. He was like those people in Amos, “Yes, judge the Moabites, judge the Edomites, yes, yes…” and when it was done the harshest judgments were reserved for Israel.
But that older brother of the Prodigal. I have often wondered, Did he ever go in and join the party? He and Jonah shared a similar outlook and asked as similar question: Lord, why do you care? Sometimes we do wonder why the Lord cares, but that’s where he turns the question back on us: Why should I not be concerned? After all, I made them just as I made you. Did not Ezekiel speak for the Lord, “‘Do I take any pleasure in the death of the wicked?’ declares the Sovereign Lord. ‘Rather, am I not pleased when they turn from their ways and live?’” (18:23)
Jonah concludes with a question that we must answer: Should not God be concerned about the millions of people in this world that do not know how to tell their right from their left hand? Should we rejoice when Muslims die, should we be glad when an Atheist goes to the hell he does not believe in, should we be happy when our nasty neighbor gets hers? Or should our own love and compassion be equal to the task the Lord has called us to?
Let me concluded by asking these questions because we have only skimmed the surface of Jonah’s story, but I wanted you to hear his story. But let me ask a question or two and issue a challenge.
1. Do you think God should not be concerned about the lost? And if he is how much more should we be? But do you realize that every person that is without the Gospel is without hope?
2. Can you think of one good reason why you should not share Jesus with someone honestly? That means, perhaps confronting their sinful state and reminding them of what the Scripture says about repentance?
Now for two challenges.
1. First, on a personal level, let’s each one person commit ourselves to the Lord and to the task of evangelism. I asked you a couple of weeks ago to write down the names of five people that you would like to see won to the Lord. If you have not done it, let’s do it right now. Maybe you remember 5 years ago when I asked for many of you to take from me one mustard seed and plant one seed in the life of someone. I renew that challenge today.
2. Second, one a corporate level, let’s commit ourselves to the Lord and to that task of our missions budget. Next year our mission’s budget is around $10,000. Let’s commit that over the next five years we double our missions budget to $20,000. But you see, if we all, everyone of us, commit to the Lord the winning of one lost person to Jesus, then what will happen to the missions budget? It will grow.
The challenges are before us. How will they hear if we do not go? How will they know if we do not share?
Soli Deo Gloria!
