God's Grace to the Gentiles
Jonah 1
This morning I would like to take a study into the book of Jonah.
This book has a lot of good stuff in it, just to name a few:
1. God's Call - God calls Jonah to go to Nineveh and cry out against it. Preach.
2. God's Grace - Jonah doesn't want to go, but God spares Jonah's life and gives him another chance.
3. God's love for a people who do not know Him. ¬- God wanted to send Jonah to Nineveh which a place that was a wicked place and hated by many.
1. The calling of Jonah
The book of Jonah starts off by saying - The Word of The Lord came to Jonah saying. Go to the great city of Nineveh and preach against it.
God had called Jonah to go to Nineveh.
Before we get into The Call of God - Let's do a little research about the city of Nineveh.
The city of Nineveh was the capital of the Assyrian Empire and was a large and prominent city in its day.
It was not a city of Israel; so that means that God had called Jonah to go to a sinful city, a unbelieving city, a Gentile city and to call them to believe in God.
Some say that Nineveh was the largest city in the world at that time.
It was a dominating empire and very large, so it could have been a very imtimidating place to go.
As we see in Jonah Chapter 1 veres 3, that Jonah ran away from The Lord. For some reason Jonah didn't want to go.
Jonah didn't want to do what The Lord had called Him to do.
Eventhough he had a relationship with God and was known as even a prophet, as we see in
II Kings 14:25
He was the one who restored the boundaries of Israel from Lebo Hamath to the Dead Sea, in accordance with the word of the LORD, the God of Israel, spoken through his servant Jonah son of Amittai, the prophet from Gath Hepher.
but for some reason Jonah didn't want to go.
Now I know some of us may be thinking how can someone be in The House of God and not want to do what God has called them to do.
Well it happens quite often. Believe it or not there may even be some of us here this morning, in The House of God. We know that God has called us to do a specific thing, but we don't want to do it.
Hello somebody...
The call of God...
Why didn't Jonah want to go to Nineveh and do what the LORD told him to do?
1. Maybe because he felt this was an impossible task. According to Nahum 3:1-4 Nineveh was a pretty Wicked city.
He probably thought man if I go there, I may be mocked, mistreated, and possibly even killed, because those people are so Wicked
2. Another reason could be because maybe Jonah didn't want the Assyrians in Nineveh to escape Judgement. The Assyrians were not liked by alot of people. As a matter of fact Jonah despised the brutal Assyrian capital city of Nineveh.
One commentator put it like this:
Imagine a Jewish man in New York during World War II hearing God say, 'I'm going to bring terrible judgment on Germany. I want you to go to Berlin and tell Nazi Germany to repent.' Instead of doing it, the man heads for San Francisco and then hops on a boat for Hong Kong.
The Assyrians were a people who were known for their cruelty. So when God tells Jonah to go and bring them good news, Jonah sets sail in the other direction.
Why would Jonah chose Tarshish. Well Tarshish is the city that was thought to be towards the end of the earth, and is usually associated with ships in the Bible.
Maybe Jonah thought if I can get as far away as possible from Nineveh, I might be able to escape The Presence of The Lord.
The Bible does say - that he went aboard and sailed for Tarshish to flee from The Lord.
Nineveh was east of Israel and Tarshish was at the other end on the west and it was on the furthest end of the west of Nineveh.
So Jonah wanted to get as far away from Nineveh as he possibly could, he wanted to flee from The Lord.
But the Bible says in -
Psalm 139:7-10: Where can I go from Your Spirit? Or where can I flee from Your presence? If I ascend into heaven, You are there; if I make my bed in hell, behold, You are there. If I take the wings of the morning, and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, even there Your hand shall lead me, and Your right hand shall hold me. You can't escape the presence of God..
So Jonah was running from the call.
As Jonah is on the ship heading to Tarshish The Lord sent a great wind on the sea, and such a vilent storm arose that the ship threatened to break up.
A few things happened while Jonah was on the ship:
1 - The sailors were afraid and cried out to their gods.
2 - They threw cargo in the see to lighten the load.
3 - Jonah had went below deck to go to sleep.
4 - The sailors cast lots to find out who was responsible for the calamity.
5 - They tried to row back to the shore but they couldn't
6 - They took Jonah and threw him overboard.
There is one that I would like to focus on in particular and that is what happened in verse 5, it says But Jonah had gone below deck, where he lay down and fell into a deep sleep.
Isn't that amazing that in the midst of turmoil on the boat Jonah goes down to the lower deck to go to sleep.
I gues the question is ¬- How could Jonah go fall asleep in the midst of storm and turmoil?
Maybe he wasn't even focused on the storm taking place in the boat, because he was so focused on the storm that was going on inside his life, because of running and resisting the call of God.
Imagine all the sailors are calling on their gods and getting no results, but the one who knew the True God was asleep.
The one person on board who had a relationship with the True God, Worshipped The True God, and could call on The True God, was sleep.
But let's not judge Jonah to quick because there may be some of us here this morning like Jonah. Sleep in the midst of turmoil and confusion.
Now I am not talking about physically sleeping, but here may be some of us here this morning that are Spiritually sleep.
Lets take a look and compare Jonah to the sleeping Christian:
One commentator put it like this:
- Jonah slept in a place where he hoped no one would see him or disturb him.
- Sleeping Christians" like to "hide out" among the church
- Jonah slept in a place where he could not help with the work that needed to be done.
- Sleeping Christians stay away from the work of the Lord
- Jonah slept while there was a prayer meeting up on the deck
- Sleeping Christians don't like prayer meetings!
- Jonah slept and had no idea of the problems around him.
- Sleeping Christians" don't know what is really going on
- Jonah slept when he was in great danger.
- Sleeping Christians" are in danger, but don't know it
- Jonah slept while the heathen or the unsaved needed him.
- Sleeping Christians" snooze on while the world needs their message and testimony
Sleeping Christians may protest and say I am not sleep:
- "I talk about Jesus" - but you can talk in your sleep
- "I have a walk for Jesus" - but you can walk in your sleep
- "I have passion for Jesus - I just wept in worship the other day" - but you can cry in your sleep
- "I have joy and rejoice in Jesus" - but you can also laugh in your sleep
- "I think about Jesus all the time" - but you can think while you are asleep; we call it dreaming
"Jonah was asleep amid all that confusion and noise; and, O Christian man, for you to be indifferent to all that is going on in such a world as this, for you to be negligent of God's work in such a time as this is just as strange. The devil alone is making noise enough to wake all the Jonahs if they only want to awake … All around us there is tumult and storm, yet some professing Christians are able, like Jonah, to go to sleep in the sides of the ship." (Spurgeon)
So we see that Jonah was running from the call of God.
2. God's Grace - Jonah 2:7-10
So what ended up happening is Jonah got swallowed by a big fish, we see this is Jonah 1:17 - but The Lord provided a great fish to swallow Jonah, and Jonah was inside the fish three days and three nights.
Now in Chapter 2 of Jonah we see that Jonah cried out to God from with in the fish. In verse 10 The Lord commanded the fish, and it vomited Jonah onto dry land.
Then The Word of The Lord came to Jonah a second time and after all the turmoil and trial, Jonah obeyed The Word of The Lord and went to Nineveh.
How many here are thankful for the Grace and Mercy of God.
What I love about this story is that God didn't give up on Jonah.
Eventhough Jonah ran, eventhough Jonah fought the call of God, eventhough Jonah tried to get as far away from God as possible, God still had Mercy on him and was still able to use his life to bring forth God's message.
Tell your neighbor we serve the God of another chance.
I don't know if there is anyone here this morning who finds yourself like Jonah.
You find yourself in a place that is far from God. You find yourself in a place where you are running from the call of God. You find yourself in a cituation and you don't know if you will ever get out.
Well I just stopped by this morning to tell you cry out to God from the midst of your cituation and just like God brought Jonah out, He can bring you out.
God is not a respector of persons, if He did it for Jonah He can most definitely do it for you.
Jonah ran from the calling of God and didn't want nothing to do with the Presence of God, but God had Mercy on Jonah and gave him another chance.
What is powerful and what I would like to point out, is that in the beginning of the book of Jonah The Bible says in verse 1 The word of the Lord came to Jonah son of Amittai.
Then again in verse 1 of Chapter 3 after Jonah repents it says it again almost word for word - Then the word of the Lord came to Jonah a second time:
The fact that the author of the book paralells these two verses. Chapter 1 verse 1 and Chapter 3 verse - can signify it is a new beginning for Jonah.
The same word that came at the beginning is now coming to you again, so you can have a new beginning.
WOW!!!
God was so determined to do the work through Jonah that He didn't give up on Jonah eventhough Jonah gave up on himself.
Jonah ends up going to Nineveh to preach and the king and the people in Nineveh repent and turn to God.
That leads me to my next point:
3. God's Love
Eventhough Nineveh was known for their cruelty, they were a Gentile nation, and they were despised by people.
God still chose to send them a prophet to bring them good news.
This shows us that God's message is for all people.
We can see in the book of Jonah that - God's Mercy and Compassion extends to the Gentile nations and on the condition of their repentance.
We see the extent of God's grace and that thenSalvation message is for all people.
God has no barriers when it comes to reaching hurting people.
God loves everyone and everybody regardless of background, regardless of race, regardless of color, and regardless of creed.
Oh how the Church needs to catch that today.
That is why there should be no such thing as a Black Church, or a Colored Church, or a White Church.
We are all one Church and we are one body having Christ as the Head of the Church.
Colossians 1:18
Christ is also the head of the church, which is his body. He is the beginning, supreme over all who rise from the dead. So he is first in everything.
One of the things that should be pointed out from the book of Jonah is this.
The hurting people of Nineveh is the main concern of God in this book.
The central figure is not really Jonah, but God.
It is God because He wanted Jonah to grasp something.
God wanted Jonah to grasp that¬ God had a love for the people of Nineveh and Jonah and his fellow Israelites needed to catch that.
Remember the Assyrians were enemies of Judah and Israel.
So Jonah was upset because God wanted to use Jonah to bring repentance to a people that Jonah didn't care to much about.
Jonah wanted God to bring judgment on the people that Jonah didn't like, but God wanted to use Jonah to bring repentance to a people that God loved.
God's merciful interest in the hurting people of Nineveh is the main concern.
Now the thing for you and I to learn is this. If the hated Nineveh can be the object of God's Unfailing Love and Mercy, how much more for anyone who calls on The Name of The Lord.
As a Church we should not ever let the background, the color, or the race, or our personal prejudices of someone ever stop us from reaching out to them with the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
Jonah called on the mercy of God and God heard his cry and extended mercy to him.
Now Jonah finds himself in a place that he resents it when it is extended to others.
WOW!!!
What is God treated Jonah they way Jonah wanted to Ninevites to be treated? Imagine Jonah fled the call not because he would be ineffective, but the fact that he would be effective.
Lord help us not to ever forget your unfailing love towards us, so when the time comes we can show that unfailing Love towards someone else.
