Jonah makes a comeback Jonah 3
A man went to his doctor and said, "I don’t know what to do about my wife. She’s deaf as a doornail and she won’t do anything about it." The doctor said, "I’ll tell you what to do. When you go home tonight peek your head in the door and say, "Honey, what’s for dinner?" If she doesn’t answer go into the living room and say, "Honey, what’s for dinner?" If she still doesn’t answer, walk into the kitchen and ask, "Honey, what’s for dinner?" Then you’ll be able to convince her that she has a hearing problem.
That evening he did just as the doctor instructed him. He walked in the front door and said, "Honey what’s for dinner?" He listened but didn’t get an answer. He walked into the living room and said, "Honey what’s for dinner?" Still he didn’t get an answer. He stepped into the kitchen and asked, "Honey, what’s for dinner?" Still nothing. Then he walked right up behind his wife and said, "Honey, what’s for dinner?" And she replied, "For the fourth time, we’re having spagetti."
Whenever there is a problem in a relationship it helps to know which person has the problem. In Jonah’s situation the problem was obvious. He had rebelled against the will of God and he suffered the consequences. He had to learn that when it comes to the will of God there is no such thing as flexibilty.
Some guy wrote a book a few years ago and in it he claimed that there is such thing as the permissive will of God and then there’s the perfect will of God. Its like saying, on one hand we have the good things of life while on the other there are the best things. And taking the good instead of the best isn’t wrong because we don’t displease the Lord by doing this we just rob ourselves of the blessing that goes with having the best rather than that which is merely good. That may sound good but as the Lord’s Prayer says, we are to do His will on earth as it is done in heaven. How is God’s will done in heaven? Its done immediately and without question. Its a matter of obedience. This was the lesson that Jonah had to learn. God was to be obeyed regardless of how he felt about the things he was told to do.
The last verse of chapter 2 simply says the fish vomited Jonah on dry land. Its a rather gross description of what happened but we almost get the sense that Jonah’s presence made the fish sick. For those of you who like alliterated outlines we could say Jonah was rebellious, then he repented and now he was regurgitated. So, here he is on dry land and now he’s ready to be used by God in the sense that he’s willing to do whatever he was told to do.
Jonah certainly doesn’t seem to fit the stereotype of what we expect a prophet to be. I mean, we know from what happens after he preaches that although he does what God sent him to do he’s still not a very happy camper. The problem we have with Jonah isn’t with who the prophet is but its with our concept of how he should act. I think we tend to see the prophets of the Old Testament as extremely holy people who did nothing but sit around waiting for orders from God. The fact is the prophets were people like ourselves who at times were called by God to do things they disagreed with or things they found distasteful. Obedience to the will of God doesn’t always mean joyful compliance. There are times when we each of us has to pray as the Lord Jesus did and say, "Not my will, but thine be done." As I studied and searched the scriptures I found five charactaristics of a true prophet or a messenger from God.
I Five charactaristics of a true prophet.
a) A true prophet is an ordinary man. God doesn’t look for superstars to do His work. If anything as Paul says He uses the simple to confound the wise. After all, if all God’s prophets were the best and the brightest people that could be found on the planet it would be easy for everyone to come to the conclusion that anything that was accomplished as a result of their ministry was the result of their personality and their hard work rather than the Spirit of God working through them.
Think about some of the people God used in the scripture. Someone wrote a book about Moses and called it, "Here am I, send Aaron." Moses was insecure about his ability to speak in public. His conversation with God is really rather humorous from the standpoint that he is telling God that he can’t do the very thing God created him to do.
Moses fear of speaking in public wasn’t unusual. I read a survey on fear. The number one fear most people have is speaking in public. The number two fear is death. If you put them together it means that most people would rather die than speak in public.
I heard a story of about a Christian who was thrown into the Roman Colesseum to face a hungry lion. As the lion approached him the Christian whispered something in his ear and the lion backed away with a look of terror on his face. The emperor sent for the Christian and offered him his freedom if he would tell him what he said to make the lion cower in fear. The Christian said, "I merely whispered in his ear, After dinner, you’ll be required to say a few words." And like Moses and many others the lion would rather die than speak in public. But that’s what made Moses so special. He wasn’t any different than a lot of us. He like Jonah was just an ordinary man.
After Moses died God called Joshua and three times in one chapter He commanded Joshua to be strong and of good courage. Why did He keep saying the same thing to him? Obviously, Joshua was anything but strong and courageous. He needed to trust the Lord to be something he wasn’t. Like Moses and like Jonah Joshua was just an ordinary man.
After Joshua God called Gideon to lead the people and the setting where God called Gideon is rather funny. Gideon is hiding in a winepress threshing wheat when an angel appears to him and says, "The Lord is with you, you mighty man of valor." The situation is absurd from the standpoint that if he knew that the Lord was with him in the sense that He enjoyed the Lord’s protection and if he was a mighty man of valor, then what was he doing hiding in the winepress? The fact is, like the rest of the country he was afraid. The angel recognized not what he was but what he could be if he trusted in the Lord. His problem was that he was just as ordinary as the rest of the people.
We could keep on going and look at people like David, Saul and Elijah and see how each of them were used of God but each of them also had feet of clay. They were all just ordinary people. And so was Jonah.
Jonah had likes and dislikes just like the rest of us. And just like us he was quite willing to serve the Lord but his service had to be on his terms. He didn’t want to leave Israel. He didn’t want to preach to the Assyrians. He wanted to do what he wanted to do and where he wanted to do it. Maybe God is calling someone here to serve Him somewhere else and you feel the same way. You’re not mad at any other language or ethnic group you just don’t want to leave Sackville. This is home and this is where you are comfortable. Well, God takes ordinary people like you and I He uproots them from their places of comfort and then uses them to reach the unreached people of this world.
Just think, it was a jew who brought the gospel to the Romans. A Roman who took the gospel to France. Then a Frenchman took it to Scandanavia. A Scotsman who evangelized Ireland. And an Irshman in turn took it back to Scotland. Athough it would seem more simple and more economical from our standpoint to use nationals to reach nationals God has chosen to use those who have to leave their comfort zone and cross cultural barriers to reach people who are very different from themselves. God uses ordinary people like Jonah, and like you and I to do the unordinary work of reaching others for the kingdom. God’s messengers arealways ordinary people.
b) God’s messengers are also obedient people. And there are times when God has to teach us obedience by allowing things to happen in our lives to bring us to the point of submission. Having said that I want to point out how He doesn’t always reach out and deal with us directly but there are times when He uses secondary means as he did with Jonah. He sent the storm a fish, a storm and later on a vine, a worm and a hot wind to get his attention and teach him some lessons. And I’m sure that God does the same with us. There are dozens of things both large and small that come into our lives every day as irritants and agitations and their sole purpose is to turn our attention back to God. As we get our eyes back on Him He gets a grip on our will.
So, God’s messengers are both ordinary and obedient. The third characteristic is the sense that the messenger isn’t speaking for himself.
c) Every prophet, preacher or believer who shares his testimony with an unbeliever is an ambassador of God. An ambassador is someone who represents someone else. The message he gives is not his own but the word of God. The ambassador’s job is to deliver the message not sell the one who hears it. So we are to share the word of God but the response is out of our hands. I preached somewhere and someone asked if there was any decisions. I said, "Yes, several people decided not to follow the Lord." To some we are the savour of life while to others we are the reminder of their impending death and judgement.
d) A true prophet is impartial in how he preachs the word. The message is never altered to suit the audience. If the mayor of Ninevah had met Jonah at the gates and presented him with the key to the city and asked him to tone his message down out of respect for the cultural differences of his people his request would have fallen on deaf ears. So the messenger is an ordinary, obedient, representative of God that gives the same message to everyone. That’s the messenger let’s look at the message he gives.
II Five charactaristics of a divine message.
a) The message reflects the character of God. God is loving, merciful, holy, forgiving and full of compassion. He’s also just and has the capacity for wrath against those who rebel. Since the message comes from God it will reflect His character and call people to conform to it. So the word that comes from God calls us to be like God. It makes moral demands on our lives.
b) A message from God is clear and definitive. Every child in Ninevah could understand what Jonah had to say. It was a simple message spoken in the language of the day. There was no theological jargon and no legalese. Someone took a simple message and confused it by writing this, "We respectfull petition, request, and entreat that due and adequate provision be made, this day and the day hereinafter subscribed, for the satisfying of the petitioner’s nutritional requirements and for the organizing of such allocation and distribution as may be deemed necessary and proper to assure the reception by and for said petitioners of such quantities of baked cereal products as shall, in the judgement of the aforesaid petitioners, constitute a sufficient supply thereof." As as Jesus said, "Give us this day our daily bread."
Isn’t that also true of the gospel. The gospel of God’s salvation is so simple that children of three and four can understand it and yet its also so profound that the so called wise people of this world are baffled by it.
c) A divine message draws attention to the message rather than the messenger. The prophet doesn’t allow his message to be overshadowed by his cleverness or his wit. Its like Paul says in 1 Corinthians 2:1, "And I, brethren, when I came to you, came not with excellency of speech or of wisdom, declaring unto you the testimony of God."
d) A message from God is authoritative because it comes from God. People are always trying their best to be relevant as far as the world is concerned but often at the cost of losing the sense of "thus saith the Lord." When we hear God’s word as God’s word we know that there is no other option.
e) A message from God can also be recognized by the fact that it comes without an alternative. Its repent or perish. Or... there’s only one name given under heaven by which we must be saved.
And so we see how God prepares the man and then provides him with a message. Now I want you to see what God can do with someone who simply preaches the message he has been given.
III The Ninevah campaign.
a) God had gone to such great lengths to prepare the prophet to deliver this message would think it must be a great message. And yet, it was only eight words. Look again at verse four. "And Jonah began to enter into the city a day’s journey, and he cried, and said, Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown." It reminds me of the father who had his eight year old son line up for over an hour in Paris to see the Mona Lisa. The boy took one look and said, "That’s the ugliest woman I’ve ever seen. Let’s go for a burger." The picture didn’t quite live up to his heightened sense of anticipation.
When I think of great sermons I think of "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God" by Jonathon Edwards. It was said that he fasted and prayed for three whole weeks before he preached and when he did people were clinging to the pews for fear they would slip into hell itself. There was a powerful sense of conviction. Or take the message called "Payday Someday" by R.G. Lee. He preached the same message over two thousand times and saw hundreds of people converted. These were great sermons. And yet here is one of the greatest in terms of the results. We have eight simple words and the Spirit of God used this message to convert over half a million people.
b) Why did they listen?
After all, this is a jewish prophet probably speaking with an accent giving a very strange message from a pagan perspective. The people of Ninevah were idolators who thought that God could be bought off with some kind of an offering or a sacrifice. Why would they listen to some foreigner telling them there was another way to approach God?
Some of the events that had taken place that affected the people of Ninevah. History records that there had been two plagues where thousands had died and a total eclipse of the sun just prior to Jonah’s arrival. The people would see these things as acts of divine judgement and they’d be open to a message from God.
Obviously God had been preparing the people of Ninevah just as He had been preparing the prophet who would deliver the message to them. The irionic part is that Jonah had no idea what God had been doing in Ninevah or even what He intended to do. I’m sure their response to his preaching was as much a shock to him as it was to everyone else who heard about it.
There are times when we find ourselves in the same situation. We may find ourselves talking to someone who doesn’t know the Lord the conversation turns to spiritual things and they’re totally open. We tend to forget that before we came to know the Lord many of us wrestled with the fear of death and judgement. The fact is God might be doing something in their lives and they’ve been looking for someone to talk to about spiritual things.
So the people of Ninevah were prepared by God to hear the message and then its also possible that Jonah looked a little different. Some have suggested that his skin may have been bleached white from the acidic digestive juices of the whales stomach. If that was true then his very appearance would have attracted a lot of attention. And then there was the matter of his preaching style. It says Jonah cried his message. There was a sense of desperation in his voice. He just spent some time in the belly of a whale and he knew that you didn’t fool around with God. He had learned the hard way that God was deadly serious about obedience and there is no doubt in my mind that his conviction came out in his preaching. And so the Ninevites may have picked up on his sense of desperation in his voice.
I think the reason for the results are very simple. In verse five it says, "So the people of Ninevah believed God." They didn’t turn from their sin to God for forgiveness because Jonah looked like Robert Redford or had three hit records. There was a sense of conviction of sin. They heard the word of God and saw themselves as sinners who were condemned and needed to be forgiven.
The message that Jonah preached to these people is very similiar to the message we have for the world today. Paul tells us in Romans chapter one that the whole world stands condemned in the sight of a holy God and unless men, all men everywhere repent of their sin they will face the judgement of God. Here Jonah tells them that they’ve got forty days before God acts. They had a fixed time table. Today we don’t know when the Lord is coming back or for that matter when He will call anyone of us to give account of ourselves. But we do know that each of us needs to deal with our sin before the time comes.
In essence the message of the New Testament is the same as the Old. Its repent and turn to God for forgiveness. Repentance means a change of mind but particularly a change of mind about sin. Sin is anything that falls short of God’s moral standard. If you aren’t perfect then you are a sinner just like the rest of us. And when we turn from sin to God we are indwelt by His Holy Spirit and then we begin to see sin as something that is repulsive to our new nature.
Repentance is more than just feeling bad about our sin. Its a change of mind about the sin. Its seeing the sin from God’s perspective. When we see sin as an offence against Him and destructive to our spirit and our testimony we will want to turn from it. A true believer will laways sin but can never be comfortable with sin in his life.
I also want you to see that there was evidence of their repentance. These people didn’t just say a prayer and then go on living the way they did before. The people did two things to express sorrow over their sin. They proclaimed a fast and they put on sackcloth. According to verse six the message took hold on the common people first and then the king heard what was going on and not only did he do the same but he made a public decree that every man and animal in the city would fast and be covered with sackcloth and notice what he told them in verse eight, "Let everyone turn from his evil way and the violence that is in his hands." And in response to their repentance God forgave their sin.
The plagues, eclipse, and Jonah’s appearance and preaching may have gotten their attention but it was the Spirit of God that convicted them. They simply heard the word of God and they believed it. Jesus said, there is coming a day when these very people, the Ninevites who repented will rise up in the judgement against those who have heard so much more and ignored the warnings of God. What made them so special was that they were in such darkness and yet they responded to so little light. On the other hand we have people today who are constantly exposed to the light of God’s word and yet they sit on the fence. Jonah’s message is one to you as well. Repent, God won’t wait for you forever.
Conclusion
Rather than seeing Jonah just as a jewish prophet who lived and died a couple of thousand years ago I think we have to see how we who are so much like him can also be used by God today. Like Jonah we have the same qualifications to share the message of God with those around us. Each of us are ordinary people who are called to be obedient representatives of God who are sent to give the message of salvation to the world around us. The message we are to give is the simple gospel that we ourselves have believed. In order to be effective witness for Him there are three things we need to do.
1. We need to be open to the opportunities the Lord brings our way. Listen to what people are saying. There are times when they will either initiate the conversation about spiritual things or will pick up on something you say. There is a spiritual hunger in the world today. The worse the economy gets and the more people realize how insecure our world is the more they’ll be open to the things of God.
2. In order to be effective witnesses we need to do as 1 Peter 3:15 says, "Be ready always to give an answer to every man that asks you a reason of the hope that is in you." That doesn’t mean we need to answer every question just that we need to be able to share what we believe and why we believe it.
3. We need to pray for boldness. Listen to what Paul asked the Ephesian believers to pray for in Ephesians 6:18-20, "Praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit, and watching thereunto with all perseverance and supplication for all saints; and for me, that utterance may be given unto me, that I may open my mouth boldly, to make known the mystery of the gospel, For which I am an ambassador in bonds: that therein I may speak boldly, as I ought to speak." If the apostle Paul needed to pray for boldeness then I think the rest of us need the same.
