Note: The entire book of Jonah is read before I preach.
Today we launch a new four part series entitled Jonah: The Stubborn Evangelist. And it is coming at just the right time for our church (more on the timing in just a moment). Most only know it as an amusing story about a prophet and a “whale.” While others know the story of Jonah, a man on the run from God. But he is also a man on the run from his responsibility – to share the message of God’s mercy to others. And this is what Jonah is really about – first experiencing God’s mercy and then extending God’s mercy. And it’s just this reason why Jonah shows his stubbornness.
Jonah’s stubbornness did not arise because of his fear of traveling to distant places. As we’ll discover in the biographical story of Jonah, fear of traveling wasn’t the case for Jonah. For when God told Jonah to go to Nineveh, Jonah travels a long way from home in the opposite direction to Tarshish. And while this short story is one where Jonah is in flight; it’s also one where God is in pursuit. Jonah’s life is really one of a boomerang for he ends up in the place that ran from in the beginning. For four chapters we’ll witness Jonah’s futile flight as well as God’s persistent pursuit. And in the end, it’s God’s pursuit that eventually extinguishes Jonah’s rebellion.
But I want to pause before pursuing the story of Jonah at great length and I want to talk about our church, you, and me. I want to talk about our rebellion and your stubbornness. As is often the case with biographies, we find ourselves and our own hearts mirrored in the experience of others. I want our church to sense an urgency in our desire to extend God’s mercy because we have experienced God’s mercy.
Your faith is designed to be public rather than private. There’s no such thing as an unsent Christian. I believe if we concentrate and work together God will accomplish remarkable things in our midst.
Jonah’s book is small in size as it is a mere forty-eight verses in length but it is sizeable in its impact. And its message is different from any of the other prophetic books in that we learn so much more about the prophet than we do his message. Every character is this short story is designed to teach us that God has grace to His enemies. What Jonah is really about – first experiencing God’s mercy and then extending God’s mercy.
Jonah: the Man
We read the words of verse one: “the word of the Lord came to Jonah” (Jonah 1:1). These words suggest the importance of God’s task. The words “the word of the Lord” appears seven times through the pages of Jonah. But these words appear over one hundred times through the pages of the Bible. These words meant that prophet was being drawn into God’s presence in order to see things from His perspective. There is a terse style found right from the start where we are introduced to Jonah (1:1), we are told that God has a special task for him (1:2), and lastly, we are told of Jonah’s failure to obey (1:3).
The opening pages of the book give us the impression that we are reading the continuation of a story that is already underway. Jonah has intrigued people for many centuries. Perhaps part of our intrigue comes from being swallowed by a big fish (the Bible doesn’t mention a whale). The fish is mentioned in only three verses in the book and serves similarly to the great wind that God “hurled” at the boat (Jonah 1:4). The fish plays an insignificant part in Jonah’s story for it is just one of the obstacles God places in Jonah’s path to lead Jonah back to God.
The intrigue of Jonah lies partly in the great fish but has more to do with the boomerang of His life. When we hear the words of this book, we realize that it not only traces out the path of his journey, but it also unravels the inner workings of Jonah’s heart. Here we sense his inner fears and motivations. We see a weak and inadequate vessel that God uses despite Jonah’s weakness. For Jonah runs from God only to have God pursue him. God is constantly placing obstacles in the path of Jonah from a strong wind, a great fish, or even a pagan ship’s captain who calls on Jonah to wake up in order to pray
While the book is entitled Jonah, it says more about the God who pursues him along than it does Jonah. God is mentioned thirty-eight times in the forty-eight verses of the book. You could say with accuracy that Jonah is in the background of the book with God filling as the main character of the story. Because despite any of Jonah’s intentions he ends up in just the spot God wanted him all along. So Jonah’s life is a boomerang.
Jonah lived about three thousand years ago as he was a teenager when the prophets Elijah and Elisha were in the prime of their prophetic ministries. Jonah lived in a time of crisis in his nation. Israel’s enemies had had their way with Israel through Jonah’s days. In dark days of spiritual disintegration, Jonah stood as one of God’s choice men. Jonah, a prophet, belonged to a select group of people, a privileged band of men who stood in the presence of God. A group of men who heard the unmistakable voice of God telling them what they were to do among the peoples of the earth. Jonah is a man who has rich spiritual blessings. But when we encounter him in the pages of Jonah, his past privileges and useful have given way to a man who slips, stumbles, and falls.
When we see Jonah is no longer than man he once was. The text labors to show you this as it tells us about Jonah’s spiritual decline Jonah goes down to Joppa (Jonah 1:3), he goes down to below the deck of the ship (Jonah 1:5), and he goes down into the depths of the sea (Jonah 2:6). Jonah just keeps going down until God stops him.
You know, no past privilege, no past obedience, no past usefulness can substitute for being obedient to God right now. Justin is a young businessman and a self-professed atheist. He cannot recall a time when he believed any kind of god actually existed. Justin has never been married and one of his roommates was a pastor. He liked the pastor as he was caring and “never bothered me with any talk about religion or god.” He believes hell is some girls he dated and “that when you die, you die.” Justin never recalls any Christian sharing the Gospel with him.
Questions from a Man Who Ran
Ask yourself: Am I living only with the memory of past obedience in my life? Am I substituting my past spiritual record instead of submitting to freshly to God’s will for my life? Could I be sleeping below while Justin is around me lacking any Gospel witness?
All throughout this series, we will be sharing ways for you to extend God’s mercy to others. Remember, what Jonah is really about – first experiencing God’s mercy and then extending God’s mercy.
Jonah’s Motive
God’s command to Jonah was simple: “Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and call out against it, for their evil has come up before me” (Jonah 1:2). The first word in verse two is the word “Arise.” The second word in the original language is “go.” Jonah has been chosen by God for a great spiritual adventure. Why was Jonah so stubborn against God’s command?
To understand Jonah’s motivation you must know something of the place where God wanted Jonah to go. Nineveh was hundreds of miles away from Jonah and it was an inner-city era of a population of approximately 120,000 people. To get there from his hometown, Jonah would have to travel north and east for a considerable distance. But it wasn’t the physical distance that deterred Jonah it was the people. Jonah would have recognized the city’s name immediately because of the city’s importance to the Assyrian empire. Nineveh was last capital of Assyria before the empire fell. And even in Jonah’s day, the city’s zone of influence had been felt because of their cruelty to the surrounding nations. Every Jewish person would have hated the mention of this city as Israel had been paying a tribute, or a tax, to the nation from Jonah’s grandparents’ day.
An inscription on a local Assyrian temple has been discovered by archeologists that refer to Assyria’s intimidation toward foreign nations. In the inscription itself, it refers to the king of Assyria, Ashur-nasir-apli II (883-859) as flaying his enemies’ skins and draping these skins over a pile of human bodies. The inscription goes on to say that such skins were draped over the walls as well as placed on stakes around the pile itself. This city inspired terror for Jonah and every Jewish city of Israel from the days of Jonah’s grandparents. God tells Jonah that Nineveh is in a bad way and their predicament stares Him in the face.
Back in verse three, the verse begins and ends with the words “from the presence of the Lord.” This phrase is repeated in order to stress the enormity of Jonah’s rebellion. Jonah is a fugitive running from God’s presence. Can you see Jonah in his stubbornness pulling together his life’s savings and anxiously asking when the next ship was leaving from Joppa? The Bible tells us that he “paid the fare” to go to Tarshish (Jonah 1:3). He would have gone anywhere and paid any price to get away from the people God had planned for him. He chooses to go to “Tarshish” was somewhere in western Mediterranean and possibly in modern day Spain. The important thing for Jonah was it was the opposite direction of Nineveh. Jonah goes down to Joppa, probably the nearest port, and he goes down spiritually as he seeks to flee the presence of God.
Why is Jonah rebelling? Jonah is rebelling because Jonah knows the true nature of God: “But it displeased Jonah exceedingly, and he was angry. 2 And he prayed to the Lord and said, ‘O Lord, is not this what I said when I was yet in my country? That is why I made haste to flee to Tarshish; for I knew that you are a gracious God and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love, and relenting from disaster’” (Jonah 4:1-2).
God’s has grace to people who sin against Him. Jonah didn’t want God to show compassion on Israel’s enemies. Instead, He wanted God to pulverize Nineveh. And it’s this last chapter of Jonah that we discover exactly why Jonah ran the other way. Jonah had a sneaking suspicion that God might pardon Jonah’s enemies – the people of Nineveh – all along. Jonah rebelled because Jonah hated his enemies. Jonah was a racist, a flag-waving Israelite who hated his nation’s enemies. He did not want to go to Nineveh because he knew God would have mercy on his enemies. He did not want their repentance; he wanted their doom. Quite contrary to the spirit of Jesus, he did not have good will toward his enemies. Jonah was a hard liner, and God was too soft.
Does Jonah remind you of anybody in the New Testament? The NT Jonah is the elder brother in the parable of the prodigal son. And the lesson of that parable is the same lesson as the book of Jonah. The younger brother squanders much of his father’s wealth in immoral living and heads for home. All the while the older brother has been thinking of how superior he is to this black sheep of the family and how much he deserves from the father. But when this no-good brother comes home, what happens? The father puts a ring on his finger, a coat on his back, kills the best calf for him, and throws a party. Then the older brother hears about it and what does he do? He refuses to go in. He is angry that the father has shown mercy. Just like Jonah outside Nineveh, the elder brother sulks outside the father's house. The older brother’s problem wasn’t racism of another tribe but the hatred produced by a smug, self-righteousness. Both were men who had experienced God’s mercy but refused to extend His mercy.
Every Christian who has first experienced God’s mercy should be motivated to then extend God’s mercy. Every believer should be motivated to share the mercy they experience with other sinners. God is more full of grace than you are of sin. If you are running from God in a ship bound to Tarshish, God will hurl a strong wind in your way in order to turn you around. Your running is futile, His pursuit will find you.
