Jonah 1:17-3:10
Intro:
1. I once saw a car, it looked a little like my truck, it’s paint was peeling off, it had a gash on the side of it, a window was missing with a piece of cardboard flapping in the wind, and a piece of wire keeping the door from opening.
But what got my attention was the bumper sticker on it. It said in big letters: This is NOT an Abandoned car!
2. Jonah is beginning to look like that car – a little beat up, bruised, and bleeding. But he is not an abandoned prophet!
3. The Second Chance Received.
Trans: We have seen that the Second Chance was Required because of Jonah’s rebellion, now we see that it was Received because of God’s grace. 1:17-3:10
II. SECOND CHANCE RECEIVED. 1:17-3:10
A. First, we have the Conveyance. 1:17
1. Jehovah’s deliverance of Jonah. 17a
17 And the LORD appointed a great fish to swallow Jonah – not exactly a room in the Hilton, but it did beat drowning.
Chuck Swindoll has a way with words:
“Pitch black. Splashing gastric juices all over you, burning skin, eyes, throat, and nostrils. Oxygen is scarce and each frantic gulp of air is saturated with salt water. The rancid smell of digested food causes you to throw up repeatedly until you have only dry heaves left. Everything you touch has the slimy feel of the mucous membranes that line the stomach. You feel claustrophobic. With every turn and dive of the great fish, you slip and slide in the cesspool of digestive fluid. There are no footholds. No blankets to keep you warm from the cold, clammy depths of the sea.”
Such was Jonah’s deliverance, I am sure he would have preferred a life preserver thrown from a passing yacht – but you do the crime you pay the time! Rebellion is never a trip to Disneyland.
God will deliver us, but He does it His way! I was doing a revival in Cominto, AR, the Pastor and I were visiting a Vietnam girl who had come to Christ. She had an amazing testimony, she came to America on a little boat, being without food for days. At that time she was going through a financial storm and Bro. Tom had given her a check to help out – but she refused to cash it. As we talked we discovered that she had received checks from various churches where she gave her testimony, but had thrown them all away. She wanted deliverance but her way.
PS: This is where you get to use all of those Jonah and the whale jokes we have been saving:
• A Children’s Church teacher asked her class, “What do we learn from the story of Jonah?” An eight-year-old boy put up his hand. “Travel by air,” he said.
• JONAH’S MOTHER: “That’s a nice story. Now tell me where you’ve really been for the last three days.”
• Pastor: “Just think of it, Jonah spent three days in the belly of a large fish.” Member: “That’s nothing, my husband spent longer than that in the belly of an alligator.” Pastor: “Well, I declare ... just how long was he in there?” Member: “It’s almost four years, now.”
• QUESTION: Why could Jonah be swallowed by the big fish in one gulp? ANSWER: Jonah was one of the “minor prophets”!
• After reading the story of Jonah and the whale to her Children’s Church class, Miss Martha decided to give them a little quiz. “What,” she asked, “is the moral of this story?” For the answer she called on little Katya. Katya thought for a minute and then replied, “People make whales throw up.”
Another PS: This was a supernatural deliverance from God, but it is interesting that there have been cases where people were swallowed by a whale and survived the ordeal. The following account is taken from the Princeton Theological Review, Vol. 25, 1927, p. 636:
In February 1891, the whaling ship Star of the East was in the vicinity of the Falkland Islands and the lookout sighted a large sperm whale three miles away. Two boats were launched and in a short time one of the harpooners was enabled to spear the fish. The second boat attacked the whale, but was upset by a lash of its tail and the men thrown into the sea, one man being drowned, and another, James Bartley, having disappeared, could not be found. The whale was killed and in a few hours was lying by the ship's side and the crew were busy with axes and spades removing the blubber. They worked all day and part of the night. Next morning, they attached some tackle to the stomach which was hoisted on the deck. The sailors were startled by something in it which gave spasmodic signs of life, and inside was found the missing sailor doubled up and unconscious. He was laid on the deck and treated to a bath of sea water which soon revived him.... He remained two weeks a raving lunatic.... At the end of the third week he had entirely recovered from the shock and resumed his duties.
Bartley affirms that he would probably have lived inside his house of flesh until he starved, for he lost his senses through fright and not from lack of air. He remembers the sensation of being thrown out of the boat into the sea.... He was then encompassed by a great darkness and he felt he was slipping along a smooth passage of some sort that seemed to move and carry him forward. The sensation lasted but a short time and then he realized he had more room. He felt about him and his hands came in contact with a yielding, slimy substance that seemed to shrink from his touch. It finally dawned upon him that he had been swallowed by the whale.... He could easily breathe, but the heat was terrible. It was not a scorching, stifling nature, but it seemed to open the pores of his skin and draw out his vitality.... His skin was exposed to the action of the gastric juice... face, neck and hands were bleached to a deadly whiteness and took on the appearance of parchment... (and) never recovered its natural appearance... (though otherwise) his health did not seem affected by his terrible experience.
I agree with one commentary which said, “If the story had said that the Lord sent a shrimp to swallow Jonah, I would believe it. You could argue with me repeatedly that there is no way a shrimp could eat a man or that a man could stay inside of a shrimp for three days. If Scripture had said, “The Lord raised up a shrimp and it swallowed Jonah,” it would be true. God is the sovereign Creator. He could create a shrimp way bigger than “jumbo” that could swallow a man whole.”
2. Jehovah’s conveyance of Jonah back to Joppa.
and Jonah was in the stomach of the fish three days and three nights – as I shared before this is a wonderful picture of God accomplishing His will in spite of our ignorance of it. That fish was heading back to Joppa, to Jonah it was just dark and slimy, but all the while God was leading. Often it seems like God is not doing anything in our lives, but He always is.
13 I had no rest for my spirit, not finding Titus my brother; but taking my leave of them, I went on to Macedonia. 14 But thanks be to God, who always leads us in triumph in Christ, and manifests through us the sweet aroma of the knowledge of Him in every place. 2 Corinthians 2:13-14
It may be a rough way we take, but we are always heading in the right direction!
Barbra Taylor shared this:
Several summers ago, I spent three days on a barrier island where loggerhead turtles were laying their eggs. One night while the tide was out, I watched a huge female heave herself up the beach to dig her nest and empty herself into it while slow, salt tears ran from her eyes. Afraid of disturbing her, I left before she had finished her work but returned next morning to see if I could find the spot where her eggs lay hidden in the sand. What I found were her tracks, only they led in the wrong direction. Instead of heading back out to sea, she had wandered into the dunes, which were already hot as asphalt in the morning sun.
A little ways inland I found her, exhausted and all but baked, her head and flippers caked with dried sand. After pouring water on her and covering her with sea oats, I fetched a park ranger, who returned with a jeep to rescue her. As I watched in horror, he flipped her over on her back, wrapped tire chains around her front legs, and hooked the chains to the trailer hitch on his jeep. Then he took off, yanking her body forward so fast that her open mouth filled with sand and then disappeared underneath her as her neck bent so far I feared it would break. The ranger hauled her over the dunes and down onto the beach; I followed the path that the prow of her shell cut in the sand. At ocean's edge, he unhooked her and turned her right side up again. She lay motionless in the surf as the water lapped at her body, washing the sand from her eyes and making her skin shine again. Then a particularly large wave broke over her, and she lifted her head slightly, moving her back legs as she did. As I watched, she revived. Every fresh wave brought her life back to her until one of them made her light enough to find a foothold and push off, back into the water that was her home.
B. Next, we have Jonah’s Compliance. 2:1-9
1. His Existence in the Sea Creature. 2:1
1 Then Jonah prayed to the LORD his God from the stomach of the fish – he is praying from the fish’s stomach not from the sea. The fish is deliverance from the drowning, not a place of death.
2. His past Experience in the Sea. 2:2-6
Notice the past tense.
2 and he said, "I called out of my distress to the LORD, And He answered me. I cried for help from the depth of Sheol; You heard my voice. 3 "For You had cast me into the deep, Into the heart of the seas, And the current engulfed me. All Your breakers and billows passed over me. 4 "So I said, 'I have been expelled from Your sight. Nevertheless I will look again toward Your holy temple.' 5 "Water encompassed me to the point of death. The great deep engulfed me, Weeds were wrapped around my head. 6 "I descended to the roots of the mountains. The earth with its bars was around me forever.
What we see here is that Jonah “prayed to the Lord his God from inside the fish.” Then, immediately Jonah begins to recount what happened to him in the sea before the Lord sent the sea creature to deliver him.
a. The Problem – he was drowning. 2
2 and he said, "I called out of my distress to the LORD, And He answered me. I cried for help from the depth of Sheol; You heard my voice. 3 "For You had cast me into the deep, Into the heart of the seas, And the current engulfed me. All Your breakers and billows passed over me. 4 "So I said, 'I have been expelled from Your sight. Nevertheless I will look again toward Your holy temple.' 5 "Water encompassed me to the point of death. The great deep engulfed me, Weeds were wrapped around my head. 6 "I descended to the roots of the mountains. The earth with its bars was around me forever – this is poetic language, of a literal experience. Colin Smith notes:
When he first hit the water, Jonah worked hard to stay on the surface, but the currents kept pulling him under. Bobbing up and down, fighting for air and for his life, he managed to catch a breath, only to find another wave crashing over him, and taking him under again. With waves pounding him from above and currents pulling him from below, it wasn’t long before Jonah went down…God allowed Jonah to go to the bottom before He sent the fish. When, as Jonah says, “To the roots of the mountains I sank down” (v. 6), he clearly was no longer above the water. If Jonah could have stayed at the surface, he might have been able to hold on to some floating cargo and save himself. But God took Jonah down to the bottom, where he had no way out. His strength was gone; he was absolutely helpless. Then God sent the fish.
We can learn several things from Jonah’s experience:
• We can learn the value of Mediating on the Psalms. This prayer is full of quotes from the Psalms. The psalms are a great source of encouragement, as is all of the Word of God. Greg Laurie observes:
This is an amazing prayer. What makes it even more remarkable is that the prophet quotes eight times from the book of Psalms, which must have been one of his favorite books. That’s why it’s so wonderful to memorize Scripture; you never know when you will find yourself in a tight spot and need the comfort and instruction of God’s Word. When I pray, I like to quote the Scriptures. It’s not to remind God of what He has said, but it’s to remind me of what He has said.
Anatoly Shcharansky labored 13 years in a Soviet labor camp. He was released in February 1986 as part of an East-West exchange. Upon leaving the guards tried to take his book of Psalms. He said on Israeli television: “They took all my possessions from me, I said I would not leave the country without the Psalms, which helped me so much. I lay down in the snow and said, 'Not another step.’”
• God is the One who is the Making of our Problems. Notice it shows that the one behind our problems is God, he says, “For YOU cast me into the deep.” I thought it was the sailors! Like Joseph, it was his brothers that threw him into the pit and sold him to an Egyptian Caravan, but Joseph knew the one behind it all was God (Gen. 45:5; 50:19-20). We do well to stop talking about bad luck, or blaming people, or the Devil.
• Living in sin, Makes us, not want to Pray. Up until this time, Jonah never prays. And it is not, that God will not hear us when we sin, but we simply do not want to pray. The truth is when we sin, is when we need Him most! We should learn to keep on praying whether we have sinned or not!
Martin Luther observes, “Some say, “I would feel better about God hearing my prayer if I were more worthy and lived a better life.”...Prayer must not be based on or depend on your personal worthiness or the quality of the prayer itself; rather, it must be based on the unchanging truth of God’s promise. If the prayer is based on itself or on anything else besides God’s promise, then it’s a false prayer that deceives you—… We pray because we are unworthy to pray. Our prayers are heard precisely because we believe that we are unworthy. We become worthy to pray when we risk everything on God’s faithfulness alone… For your worthiness doesn’t help you, and neither does your unworthiness hinder you. A lack of faith is what condemns you, but confidence in God is what makes you worthy.”
b. The Provision – the fish. 3-6
But You have brought up my life from the pit, O LORD my God. – God did that by way of this fish. I wonder how long he was splashing about before God sent that fish? Russ Reaves notes:
But we are not told how much time elapsed between those two events. When Jonah hits the water, the pace of the narrative in Jonah becomes like a slow motion dramatic scene in a movie. It is safe to assume that it wasn’t days, and unlikely hours. We don’t know, however, if there were seconds or minutes that elapsed between the time Jonah entered the sea and the time Jonah entered the fish. We do know that it was long enough for him to pray. In the opening words of Chapter 2 we read, “Then Jonah prayed to the Lord his God from the stomach of the fish.” This is the first time in the whole book that we have seen Jonah in prayer. But it is not the first time he has prayed. In this prayer from inside the belly of the fish, he is recounting how God answered another prayer he prayed while he was drowning in the sea.
c. The Promise. 2:7-9
7 "While I was fainting away, I remembered the LORD, And my prayer came to You, Into Your holy temple. 8 "Those who regard vain idols Forsake their faithfulness, 9 But I will sacrifice to You With the voice of thanksgiving. That which I have vowed I will pay. Salvation is from the LORD." – obviously God did not deliver Jonah from the Sea to be digested by this Sea Creature. God did not deliver us from hell to forsake us in this life!
He didn’t bring us this far to leave us;
He didn’t teach us to swim to let us drown;
He didn’t build His home in us to move away;
He didn’t lift us up to let us down!
We must not “throw away our confidence, which has a great reward” (Heb. 10:35). As one notes:
A battle rages in his soul while he struggles in the water. Faith rises within him, and he says, I’m going to cry out to God; I’m going to put my hope in Him. “Yet I will look again toward your holy temple.”… It is a marvelous statement of faith… The flesh will tell you that God is against you, that you have gone too far and that He is no longer interested in you. But faith defies the flesh. It contradicts Satan’s lies. It rises up against defeat, gloom and despair and finds hope in God… Faith prevails over despair when you fix your eyes on the grace of God rather than your own failure… When Jonah looked at himself, he despaired because he knew that he deserved to be banished. But then he dared to believe that there is hope in God and that he could find it by looking away from himself and his failures, and fixing his eyes on God and His grace. ‘Looking’ is a way of describing faith. The analogy goes back to an occasion when God’s people were afflicted by venomous snakes during their years in the desert. With people all over the camp writhing in pain from the snakebites, and losing strength by the minute, the Israelites asked Moses to pray. God told Moses to make a bronze snake and put it on a pole. Then He gave this promise: “Anyone who is bitten can look at it [the bronze snake] and live” (Num. 21: 8).
Notice the object of our faith is not ourselves but God Himself – salvation is of the Lord! Trent Butler notes, “God had saved him. Standing at death's door, he cried for God's help and found God present at death's door. God had truly saved the prophet, and he wanted everyone to know about it.”
Question: Did Jonah die in that fish? No!
• Logical sequence does not seem to indicate that Jonah died. We have a prepared fish that swallows Jonah, he is then seen as praying inside of the fish, where he is for 3 days and nights until he is spit out onto dry land.
• Listening to the text, it does not say that Jonah died.
• Literalism is pushing a type too far. Jesus said “as Jonah was three days and nights in the belly of the fish so shall the son of man be…” (Mt. 12:39, 41). The argument goes, since Jesus died Jonah must also die. However, Jonah is a type, and they cannot be pushed too far. Isaac is a type of Christ’s resurrection, but he did not actually die (Heb. 11:17-19).
• The Language of 2:2 is given as proof that Jonah died, but he is quoting from the Psalms, and David often speaks of being in Sheol, yet he was not actually dead. It simply speaks of a close brush with death (Psa. 18:4-6; 30:3; etc.).
MacArthur is helpful:
The phrase does not necessarily indicate that Jonah actually died. “Sheol” frequently has a hyperbolic meaning in contexts where it denotes a catastrophic condition near death (Ps 30: 3). Later Jonah expressed praise for his deliverance “from the pit” (v. 6), speaking of his escape from certain death.
• The Linguistics of a whale or other large fish does not necessitate a death. As one notes:
It is not impossible to survive in a whale. A sulphur-bottom whale and a whale shark have no teeth. They feed by submerging their lower jaw and straining out the water, swallowing any food. In 1933, a one hundred foot sulphur bottom whale was captured off the coast of Cape Cod. The mouth was about twelve feet wide, big enough to swallow a horse. These kinds of whales have four to six compartments in their stomachs. A man could find lodging in any one of these compartments. In the head of this whale is a wonderful air storage chamber. It is an enlargement of the nasal sinus passage measuring seven feet high, seven feet wide, and fourteen feet long. If the whale has an unwelcome guest, giving him headaches, he swims to land and rids of his offenders.
The Cleveland Plain Dealer newspaper quoted an article by Dr. Ransome Harvey who stated that a dog was lost overboard from a ship. It was found six days later in the head of a whale, alive and barking. Frank Bullen, who wrote "The Cruise of Cathalot" tells of a fifteen foot shark found in a whale's stomach. He states that when a whale is dying, it empties the contents of its stomach.
Having said all that I personally agree with Tozer who writes:
I receive a lot of magazines, most of which I dutifully and joyously never read. I looked at one recently after I came home in the evening, and it had a question and answer department in it.
One question was: "Dear Doctor So and So: What about the whale swallowing Jonah? Do you believe that?" And the good doctor replied: "Yes, I believe it. Science proves that there are whales big enough to swallow men."
I folded the magazine, and laid it down, for that man had come up to bat, but he had struck out beautifully. For I believe that Jonah was swallowed by a whale, not because a scientist has crawled in and measured a whale's belly, and come out and said, "Yes, God can do that." If God said that Jonah was swallowed by a whale, then the whale swallowed Jonah, and we do not need a scientist to measure the gullet of the whale....Grant me God and miracles take care of themselves.
C. Jonah’s Second Chance. 2:10; 3:1
1. God’s Command.
10 Then the LORD commanded the fish, and it vomited Jonah up onto the dry land. – Jonah is having an Ebenezer Scrooge experience, He is given another chance.
One of the world's worst stinks, under the right conditions, can be turned into the world's most attractive scents. Ken Wilman learned all about this after his dog became overly interested in what looked like a rock lying on a beach. Curious, he picked it up, sniffed it, and dropped it with an 'urgh.
After a bit of research Wilman learned the stinky object is actually whale vomit (called ambergris) and quite rare and highly prized by perfume makers. Under the heat of the sun the pungent ambergris turns from horrifically offensive to the most pleasant of smells. A French dealer has already offered Wilman over $50,000 for his seven pound chunk of whale up-chuck.
That Vomit was Jonah! God’s precious prophet! We are not sure where God had the fish spit him out, most think it was Joppa.
Interesting Rabbinic sources take one of two ways of interpreting this, “either by assuming that the oceans were connected underground to a body of water closer to Nineveh, or by claiming that Jonah became a projectile spewed several hundred miles from the ocean to Assyria.”
2. God’s second Commission.
1 Now the word of the LORD came to Jonah the second time, saying, Jonah 3:1
a. The Principle – another chance.
Have you ever played Scribble? Someone draws a wild senseless line on a piece of paper and then you make something meaningful out of it – a building or flower or person, etc.
The wild senseless line is our sin and God’s grace makes something meaningful out of it. Rom. 5:20, our sin no matter how grievous or many is always limited, finite; while God’s grace is infinite, unlimited. Our sin is no match for God’s grace!
The problem is we make more of our sin than God’s grace. Grace is God giving the guilty that which they do not deserve.
Charles Stanley notes, “Did Jonah deserve a second chance to carry out God’s assignment? No. Neither do we. But God, in His mercy, is not about keeping score but is about shaping us into the likeness of His Son.”
Former President George Bush was a Navy Pilot during WW II. During a mission he was hit by Japanese gunfire and had to bail out. It went badly – he slammed his head against part of the airplane cutting and bruising himself badly. It also tore his parachute, causing him to go down faster then he wanted, if he had not landed in the water it might have killed him.
The failure bothered him for years, so on March 25, 1997, at the age of 72 he got another chance to do it right. He jumped from a plane, in the Arizona desert and made a soft landing, 40 yards from the target. He said, “I’m a new man, I go home exhilarated!”
Then on his 90th birthday he did it again!
It is wonderful to get a another chance – like Jonah, and many others in the Bible, we have all had that amazing grace experience many, many times.
b. The Pattern.
• Adam – he was clearly warned not to partake of that tree and He willfully rebelled. God could have been done with Adam and just could have made another man! But He gives Adam a second chance.
• Abraham – told to leave his kindred and go to a land that God would show him. He takes his father and Nephew and goes to Haran for about 6 years! But God speaks to him again with the same message.
• Moses –jumps the gun and decides to deliver the children of Israel – one Egyptian at a time. He murders a man, but God comes to him again at the burning bush.
• Judges – the entire book is about failure and another chance.
• David – commits adultery and murder and yet is restored.
• Peter – denies the Lord and yet is key note speaker on Day of Pentecost.
• John Mark – deserts Paul and Barnabas during their first missionary journey, and yet, writes the Gospel of Mark and later is called useful to Paul.
• Question: How many of us received Christ when we first heard the gospel? Did we really deserve another chance to hear it again!
Charles Swindoll noted:
“When God calls individuals into His vineyard, He calls only sinful people. Each inadequate in himself, weak and wayward by nature, and could pose for a portrait painted in the lyrics of the beloved hymn “Prone to wander, Lord I feel it; Prone to leave the God I love.” Demas, “having loved this present world” forsook Paul and fled to Thessalonica…Gehazi, Elisha’s servant couldn’t hide his materialism and greed. Isaiah admitted he was a “man of unclean lips.” Aaron prompted the molding of a golden calf for the Hebrews to worship, and Samson was a notorious womanizer…No one is immune to imperfection. None of the above and neither are you nor I.”
Again this is not to encourage or excuse sin, remember when we sin we are miserable and lose rewards. I have car insurance but that does not encourage me to run my truck into a tree!
Con:
1. Nothing more wonderful than having a second change!
2. But when you think about it we get something far greater than just another chance. We began by talking about that old, beat up car that had the bumper sticker – This is not an abandoned car. God will not abandon us, but it’s even better than that.
3. There is a television show called Overhaulin’. On this show, a crew of expert mechanics set up a fake car theft. The owner is obviously stressed out at the thought of his car being stolen. The crew takes a week and transforms the car to a completely overhauled masterpiece. We’re talking about a new paint job, custom body modifications, an all new interior, and a new engine under the hood!
When they finally reveal the overhauled car to the owner they can hardly believe it is the same car! The car has been radically transformed. And it did not cost the car owner a dime! It is all completely free.
God not only gives us a second chance, but also will one day give us a glorified body, soul, and spirit! And all by way of the merit of the Lord Jesus Christ. Jonah is not only going to get another chance to go to Nineveh, but will go to glory as well! We, likewise, not only get a second chance but the ultimate eternal chance!
Charles Swindoll gives us a good summary:
“Take Jonah. No one else wanted to…He was prejudiced, stubborn, openly rebellious, and spiritually insensitive. Other prophets ran to the Lord. He ran from Him! Others declared the promises of God with fervent zeal. Not Jonah, he was about as motivated as a 600 lb grizzly in mid January. Somewhere down the line the prophet got his inner directions cross-wired. He wound up, of all places, on a ship in the Mediterranean Sea bound for a place named Tarshish, as you may remember.
Through a traumatic chain of events, Jonah began to get his head together in the digestive track of a gigantic fish. For the first time, in a long time, the prophet brushed up on his prayer life. Yelled for mercy, Recited palms. Promised to keep his vow…and so up came the prophet, who hit the road running – toward Nineveh.”
He is a marvelous example of how awesome God’s grace really is.
3. Jonah’s Communication of a message. 3:2-4
Trans: We have seen God’s Command, God’s second Commission, and now Jonah’s Communication to the people of Nineveh. I like the way one person described it:
So you’re walking along the beach minding your own business, and all of a sudden this big fish slides himself up on shore, pukes all over, and slides back into the water. Out of the slime and fish parts and seaweed, a man drags himself out, struggles, and stands up — his clothes half digested, a piece of seaweed stuck to the side of his face. He looks at you, coughs up some seawater, clears his throat, and says, “Repent!” What would you do? I know what I’d do: I’d repent!”
a. Immediate obedience. 2-3a
2 "Arise, go to Nineveh the great city and proclaim to it the proclamation which I am going to tell you." 3 So Jonah arose and went to Nineveh according to the word of the LORD. – how refreshing!
Philip is a good example of the need to obey God immediately.
26 But an angel of the Lord spoke to Philip saying, "Get up and go south to the road that descends from Jerusalem to Gaza." (This is a desert road.) 27 So he got up and went; and there was an Ethiopian eunuch, a court official of Candace, queen of the Ethiopians, who was in charge of all her treasure; and he had come to Jerusalem to worship, 28 and he was returning and sitting in his chariot, and was reading the prophet Isaiah. 29 Then the Spirit said to Philip, "Go up and join this chariot." 30 Philip ran up and heard him reading Isaiah the prophet, and said, "Do you understand what you are reading?" 31 And he said, "Well, how could I, unless someone guides me?" And he invited Philip to come up and sit with him. 32 Now the passage of Scripture which he was reading was this: "HE WAS LED AS A SHEEP TO SLAUGHTER; AND AS A LAMB BEFORE ITS SHEARER IS SILENT, SO HE DOES NOT OPEN HIS MOUTH. 33 "IN HUMILIATION HIS JUDGMENT WAS TAKEN AWAY; WHO WILL RELATE HIS GENERATION? FOR HIS LIFE IS REMOVED FROM THE EARTH." 34 The eunuch answered Philip and said, "Please tell me, of whom does the prophet say this? Of himself or of someone else?" 35 Then Philip opened his mouth, and beginning from this Scripture he preached Jesus to him. 36 As they went along the road they came to some water; and the eunuch said, "Look! Water! What prevents me from being baptized?" 37 [And Philip said, "If you believe with all your heart, you may." And he answered and said, "I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God."] 38 And he ordered the chariot to stop; and they both went down into the water, Philip as well as the eunuch, and he baptized him. 39 When they came up out of the water, the Spirit of the Lord snatched Philip away; and the eunuch no longer saw him, but went on his way rejoicing. 40 But Philip found himself at Azotus, and as he passed through he kept preaching the gospel to all the cities until he came to Caesarea. Acts 8:26-40 (NASB)
If Philip had waited, he would have missed the opportunity. He had to run as it was to catch the chariot.
It is so easy for us to become distracted from obeying God immediately.
Eighteen year old Fabian Gonzalez was a bright, talented, motivated high school senior on the brink of graduation. Waiting for him in the fall was a $32,000 scholarship to attend Northwood University. But before he could realize his dreams or explore his full potential, his life was cut short in a tragic traffic accident.
But unlike so many other teen traffic accidents, there were no drugs, no alcohol, no crazy antics. Fabian didn't die recklessly trying to dodge the rules. He died recklessly trying to obey them. WFAA News, Dallas, reports:
His memory brings smiles to the faces of Ricardo and Priscilla Gonzalez. They recall how Fabian never wanted to upset them.
But on Saturday night, just after midnight, in the 4200 block of South Walton Walker Boulevard, Fabian died trying. Ricardo admits his son was speeding. "He was in a rush trying to get home, because we gave him a curfew," he said. It's unclear what distracted young Fabian that night last month (April '13) that he should lose track of time and find himself racing to meet his parents' curfew--and expectations. Had Fabian not allowed himself to become distracted, he would likely have left for home in a timely way, driven the speed limit, and arrived alive.
b. The Immensity of the Place. 3b
Now Nineveh was an exceedingly great city, a three days' walk – some people make a big deal about the fact that the historical city at that time was not that big. They take this to mean that it took Jonah 3 days to walk through the city. Delitzsch is helpful:
This line of argument, the intention of which is to prove the absurdity of the narrative, is based upon the perfectly arbitrary assumption that Jonah went through the entire length of the city in a straight line, which is neither probable in itself, nor implied… This simply means to enter, or go into the city, and says nothing about the direction of the course he took within the city. But in a city, the diameter of which was 150 stadia, and the circumference 480 stadia, one might easily walk for a whole day without reaching the other end, by winding about from one street into another. And Jonah would have to do this to find a suitable place for his preaching, since we are not warranted in assuming that it lay exactly in the geographical centre, or at the end of the street which led from the gate into the city. But if Jonah wandered about in different directions, as Theodoret says, "not going straight through the city, but strolling through market-places, streets, etc.," the distance of a day's journey over which he travelled must not be understood as relating to the diameter or length of the city; so that the objection to the general opinion, that the three days' journey given as the size of the city refers to the circumference, entirely falls to the ground.
c. The Imminent Menace. 4
(1) The Depravity.
2 "Arise, go to Nineveh the great city and cry against it, for their wickedness has come up before Me." – we already looked at this but need to be reminded that God’s judgment was just.
Today we have all but eliminated the concept of evil and wickedness. We have all of these school shootings, and we blame guns and mental illness but few blame the wickedness of mankind.
9 "The heart is deceitful above all things, And desperately wicked; Who can know it? Jeremiah 17:9 (NKJV)
Russian writer Alexandr Solzhenitsyn said:
"If only there were evil people somewhere, insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?"
(2) The Journey.
4 Then Jonah began to go through the city one day's walk – does not mean that Jonah traveled into the city for a whole day before preaching. Instead, it means on the first day he entered the city he began preaching.
(3) The Urgency.
and he cried out and said, "Yet forty days…” - Our message is always urgent because we never know when we are going to die (Prov. 27:1/2 Cor. 6:2).
Oliver Wendell Holmes was asked why he had taken up the study of Greek at the age of 94. He said, “Well, my good sir, it’s now or never.”
They had only forty days, truth is there may be some here who have less then that before their life is over.
(4) The Severity.
and Nineveh will be overthrown – notice there is no call to repent or sliver of hope offered. It is not turn or burn but burn baby burn!
This is speaking of total destruction. It would not only be total but eternal! James Kennedy writes:
Forever and ever and ever. When you have been in hell a hundred billion, trillion eons of centuries, you will not have one less second to be there—to be lost forever. You will be in utter darkness, fleeing this way and that with never another mortal soul to converse with, never an angel to cross your track, turning this way and that, up and down one plane in every way, forever and ever lost, lost, shrieking out, lost, forever, where no echoes will ever mock your misery. Immortal soul, lost in an infinite darkness, flying on and on in a journey that will only end when you will come to fold your wings upon the gravestone of God, forever.
4. Nineveh’s Compliance. 5-10
This reminds me of something I read:
So you’re walking along the beach minding your own business, and all of a sudden this big fish slides himself up on shore, pukes all over, and slides back into the water. Out of the slime and fish parts and seaweed, a man drags himself out, struggles, and stands up — his clothes half digested, a piece of seaweed stuck to the side of his face. He looks at you, coughs up some seawater, clears his throat, and says, “Repent!” What would you do? I know what I’d do: I’d repent!”
a. There was Delivery of God’s Word. 3:2
2 "Arise, go to Nineveh the great city and proclaim to it the proclamation which I am going to tell you." – faith comes from God’s Word (Rom. 10:17).
Boice notes:
Jonah preached what God had given him to preach, and it was highly effective. It was not a lengthy message, but that did not matter. It was not an intellectual message, but that did not matter either. Perhaps it was not even an eloquent message, but neither did that matter. All that was necessary was that it was God's message, preached and heard in the power of God's Holy Spirit.”
1 I solemnly charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who is to judge the living and the dead, and by His appearing and His kingdom: 2 preach the word; be ready in season and out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort, with great patience and instruction. 3 For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but wanting to have their ears tickled, they will accumulate for themselves teachers in accordance to their own desires, 4 and will turn away their ears from the truth and will turn aside to myths. 2 Timothy 4:1-4
We are living in days where personal opinion, the Constitution, the polls, the news media, and whatever has become our authority. All views must be accepted or at least respected except God’s Word.
Camp Quest West, just north of Sacramento, California, is no church camp. Designed for children of agnostics, atheists, freethinkers, and humanists, the mission of the camp is to:
"…promote respect for others with different viewpoints, values, and beliefs…we deplore efforts … to seek to explain the world in supernatural terms and to look outside nature for salvation."
The weeklong experience includes crafts, campfires, and canoe trips, along with class sessions about evolution, the power of debate, and skepticism. Rick Rohrer the camp director says:
It's "a vacation from Judeo-Christian culture.”
Edwin Kagin adds, "Kids come there and they cry. They say it's the first time in their life that they're able to express that they don't believe in God."
The camp ends with what director Chris Lindstrom calls "a competition for the kids to create their own religion that everyone can believe in and that will be good for all, for all time."
That is what America is becoming, a place where everyone seeks to be on vacation from God. It is our duty to confront this world with the Word of God!
b. There was Dependency. 5
5 Then the people of Nineveh believed in God – upwards to 150 times the Bible declares that salvation is by faith. That is always the issue – faith or unbelief (Jn. 16:8-11).
To say they believed also assumed they repented. Faith and repentance are two sides to one coin (Mt. 12:41).
Notice also it does not say they believed Jonah but they believed in God! We have to keep the focus where it belongs – on God not us.
Kendall notes, “Isn’t this interesting? So the people of Nineveh believed God. It is not enough merely for men to believe us…men can believe in us and be lost. I never will forget a very powerful preacher who was once my pastor. This man, after he left the area and went on to another church, had many people who fell away from their profession of faith. It suggested how much they were followers of him…So it is not enough to believe in a man.”
There is no substitute for faith in God (Heb. 11:6/Eph. 2:8-9).
A Canadian Press photo shows how one man from Havana, Cuba, tried to appease God's wrath. The man is lying on his back on a dirt road. Attached to his ankle is a chain several feet long. The other end of the chain is wrapped around a rock. The caption explains that the bearded man is inch by inch pulling the rock on a pilgrimage to a sanctuary dedicated to St. Lazarus.
This man's faith is misguided, because it is placed in himself and what he can accomplish. It is a works salvation which is no salvation at all! Saving faith must be coupled with God’s grace, it is completely unmerited and unearned.
c. There was a Display of humility. 5
and they called a fast and put on sackcloth from the greatest to the least of them – sackcloth was worn to express sorrow (1 Kings 20:31-32) repentance (Lam. 2:10/Joel 1:8/Esther 4:1-3) and mourning (2 Sam. 3:31). Here, it was an outward sign of an inwardly broken and contrite heart.
Pride refuses to put all of its trust in God, humility realizes it’s only hope is in God. These people humbled themselves in the extreme. Macrina Wiederkehr notes:
Fasting makes me vulnerable and reminds me of my frailty. It reminds me to remember that if I am not fed I will die … Standing before God hungry, I suddenly know who I am. I am one who is poor, called to be rich in a way that the world does not understand. I am one who is empty, called to be filled with the fullness of God. I am one who is hungry, called to taste all the goodness that can be mine in Christ.
d. The entire city was Deeply affected. 3:6-9
6 When the word reached the king of Nineveh, he arose from his throne, laid aside his robe from him, covered himself with sackcloth and sat on the ashes. 7 He issued a proclamation and it said, "In Nineveh by the decree of the king and his nobles: Do not let man, beast, herd, or flock taste a thing. Do not let them eat or drink water. 8 "But both man and beast must be covered with sackcloth; and let men call on God earnestly that each may turn from his wicked way and from the violence which is in his hands. 9 "Who knows, God may turn and relent and withdraw His burning anger so that we will not perish." – this is remarkable! It effected everybody from the big shot to the little shot and those who ought to shot!
e. There was avoidance of Doomsday. 10
10 When God saw their deeds, that they turned from their wicked way, then God relented concerning the calamity which He had declared He would bring upon them. And He did not do it. – again notice God takes responsibility for the calamity that would have come upon them.
They took God’s warning seriously, we preachers have been warning of a doomsday that is right around the corner – a Seven-year nightmare, but no one is too concerned about it.
On a balmy January Saturday morning, this year [2018] an alert warning of a nuclear doom was mistakenly sent to millions of people across the state of Hawaii.
"BALLISTIC MISSILE THREAT INBOUND TO HAWAII. SEEK IMMEDIATE SHELTER. THIS IS NOT A DRILL."
Those were the words that flashed on cell phones and televisions screens across the state, and it took 38 minutes before they put forth a correction that it was all a mistake. Somebody pushed the wrong button! The response was sheer panic!
But oddly enough God’s warning of eternal wrath for all who reject Christ is met with a yawn. But it is no mistake to tell people that the end of their world could come at any moment – death or rapture is an any moment possibility.
Nineveh responded while the religious leaders of Jesus’ day did not – how about us?
Note: There is the problem of God relenting. Can an immutable God really repent?
Charles Ryrie notes:
If God is immutable, how can it be said that He repents? (Gen. 6:6; Jon. 3:10). If there actually was a change in God Himself, then either He is not immutable or not sovereign or both. Most understand these verses as employing anthropomorphism; i.e., interpreting what is not human in human terms. In the unfolding revelation of God’s plan there seems to be change. However, this can be said to be so only from the human viewpoint, for His eternal plan is unchanging, as is He.
Wiersbe notes:
The phrase "God repented" might better be translated "God relented," that is, changed His course. From the human point of view, it looked like repentance, but from the divine perspective, it was simply God's response to man's change of heart. God is utterly consistent with Himself; it only appears that he is changing His mind. The Bible uses human analogies to reveal the divine character of God (Jer. 18:1-10).
Let me try and illustrate this. As you know, I was born in Michigan, and because of Lake Michigan it can get very windy. Suppose I left my house as a boy and headed for the bus stop. It is windy and so I have to struggle to get there because I am walking against the wind. Then I realize I forgot my schoolbook, so I have to head back to the house, but this time the wind is at my back and I walk with ease. Notice it was not the wind that changed direction but me! God is immutable and He never changes, but when we repent, we are changing directions. God in a sense is not really responding to us, but we are responding to Him.
Con:
1. So we have Jonah getting a second chance, one he has taken advantage of.
2. Jonah had gone from running in the wrong direction, to being used to score a victory for the glory of God.
3. Have you ever heard the story of Wrong Way Roy? Roy Riegels, an All-American center for the University of California, Berkeley’s Golden Bears who were facing Georgia Tech in the 1929 Rose Bowl. Midway through the second quarter, with Georgia Tech on offense on their own thirty, one of the Tech players fumbled the ball. Riegels alertly scooped it up and began to sprint toward the end zone, But there was one problem. It was the wrong end zone. If Roy had succeeded, he would have scored a touchdown for the opposing team. Riegels later told the Associated Press:
“I was running toward the sidelines when I picked up the ball. I started to my left toward Tech’s goal. Somebody shoved me, and I bounded right off into a tackler. In pivoting to get away from him, I completely lost my bearings.”
Fortunately, Benny Lom, one of his Cal teammates, caught up with Riegels before he got across the wrong goal line. Tech ended up scoring a safety before halftime and went into the locker rooms leading 2-0.
He told his coach, Nibs Price, during half-time in the locker room:
“Coach, I can’t do it. I’ve ruined you, I’ve ruined myself, I’ve ruined the University of California. I couldn’t face that crowd to save my life.”
But Price told him, “Roy, get up and go back out there— the game is only half over.”
Riegels did go back for the second half and turned in one of the most inspiring efforts in Rose Bowl history.
God gave wrong way Jonah another chance – and I can testify He has also given Wrong Way Johnny a million and one chances!
Johnny A Palmer Jr.
