This was for a family service, meaning that the children stayed in. We had chairs set in the shape of a boat in the centre of the church. Jonah, sailors etc., were dressed for their parts and we had a short participatory reading of some of the key moments in the story of Jonah earlier in the service.
PART 1, early in the service
We just sang the hymn, ‘Holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty.’
The prophet Isaiah had a vision. In his vision, he sees seraphim – winged angels – calling to each other, ‘Holy, holy, holy is the Lord Almighty’ [Isaiah 6:3, NIV]. Isaiah immediately senses how sinful he is. He cries out to God, 'Woe is me! For I am lost; for I am a man of unclean lips' [Isaiah 6:5, ESV].
The word ‘holy’ means that something or someone is set apart from the ordinary. But in the Bible and through history, God’s people have understood that when we say that God is holy, it means that God is absolutely pure, morally perfect. He is at a completely different level to us.
God, who is absolutely pure, morally perfect, does not like sin. God doesn’t like people hurting and killing each other. He isn’t going to put up with it.
In the time of Jonah, there was a nation which was doing a lot of hurting and killing. The nation was Assyria. God was going to do something about the Assyrians. He was going to destroy their capital city, Nineveh. But first, God wanted to try something.
God wanted to give Nineveh a chance. They had messed up. But if they were to change their ways, well then, he wouldn’t destroy Nineveh. God likes to give people a second chance.
To carry out his plan, God decided to use a man called Jonah. For Jonah to play his part in God’s plan, Jonah needed to do what God told him. What did God tell Jonah?
The very first verse of the book of Jonah says this:
‘NOW THE WORD OF THE LORD CAME TO JONAH THE SON OF AMITTAI, SAYING, “ARISE, GO TO NINEVEH, THAT GREAT CITY, AND CALL OUT AGAINST IT...”’
God spoke to Jonah. He gave Jonah an instruction. Would Jonah do what God was telling him to do?
We don’t have to wait long to find out. Verse 3 says this, ‘But Jonah…’ BUT Jonah. The word ‘but’ tells us the answer. Jonah did NOT go to Nineveh. He got on a boat going in the opposite direction to Nineveh.
Why would Jonah not want to go to Nineveh?
Some people think that Paris is the most beautiful city in the world today. It has the River Seine, Montmartre, and the Champs-Elysées. It has the Eiffel Tower and Notre-Dame and the Louvre. It’s full of art and culture.
Nineveh was perhaps not beautiful in the way that Paris is. But Nineveh was the capital of Assyria and Assyria was the biggest empire the world had ever known until that time. Nineveh had great palaces, gardens, parks, and an amazing library, the Library of Ashurbanipal. It was the most magnificent city of its time in terms of its size, power, and achievements.
Why would Jonah not want to go to Nineveh?
I mentioned that Nineveh was the capital of Assyria – and the Assyrians were doing a lot of hurting and killing. The Assyrians weren’t nice people at all. There is a woman called Erika Bleibtreu. She’s a professor and an archaeologist and a specialist in Assyria. She wrote that Assyrian history is ‘as gory and bloodcurdling a history as we know.’ I simply can’t tell you the things the Assyrians did. You’d probably run out of the church screaming and never come back. The Assyrians were incredibly cruel. The Assyrian empire was growing, and it had started to attack Israel. Why would someone from Israel want to go to Nineveh?
No, Jonah did NOT want to go to Nineveh!
God had told Jonah something, and Jonah knew what it was. But Jonah didn’t want to do what God was telling him. What do you think? Good idea?
In Jonah chapter 2, Jonah is swallowed by a big fish. Later, the fish spews Jonah up. If I was Jonah, I might have thought, maybe I should listen to God!
Jonah chapter 3 starts as follows:
‘THEN THE WORD OF THE LORD CAME TO JONAH THE SECOND TIME, SAYING, “ARISE, GO TO NINEVEH, THAT GREAT CITY, AND CALL OUT AGAINST IT...”’
Does that sound familiar? Have you heard that before? God told Jonah exactly the same thing as he’d told him before! What would you have done if you’d been in Jonah’s place? At this point, would you have paid attention to what God was telling you?
?
We don’t know who wrote the book of Jonah. But whoever wrote it didn’t repeat God’s instruction to Jonah by accident. They repeated it deliberately. They wanted to make a point.
When the Bible, and perhaps especially the Old Testament, repeats something, it means that the writer wants to point out something that it is REALLY important. What is the writer of the book of Jonah telling us which is so important?
‘THE WORD OF THE LORD CAME TO JONAH THE SECOND TIME.’
What does that tell us? Well, let me ask you.
Does it tell us that God gives up on us if we fail? Or does it tell us that God gives us a second chance?
In the same way as God was willing to give the people of Nineveh a second chance, he was willing to give Jonah a second chance.
God gave Jonah a second chance and this time he took it. He did what God had told him to do. He went to Nineveh. He told the Assyrians living there that God was about to destroy the city. And amazingly, the Assyrians turned from their evil ways. God did not bring disaster on Nineveh. It was a great result. And in large part, it happened because Jonah did what God had told him to do.
What does this mean for us? One thing it means is that God is a god of second chances. Have you done what Jonah did? Have you turned away from what God was telling you? Well, don’t lose heart. Do what Jonah did. Do what God is telling you.
There’s a second thing this story tells us. God used weak, flawed, scared Jonah to go to Nineveh and warn them. As a result, the people of Nineveh turned from their evil ways and God did not destroy Nineveh.
But if God used weak, flawed, scared Jonah, then God might use weak, flawed, scared me to talk to someone and perhaps help them to turn back to God. We need to be Jonahs in our day. We need to listen to God and be ready to go where, and to whom, God sends us.
PART 2, later in the service
Earlier in the service I thought about God giving people second chances, and about us being like Jonah, doing what God tells us.
That’s an important message. But the story of Jonah has an even bigger and more important message. It points us to God’s ultimate plan of salvation through Jesus and it tells us that God makes the impossible possible.
In the Old Testament, God often spoke about what would happen in the future. Sometimes God told prophets what would happen. Micah prophesied that Jesus would be born in Bethlehem. Isaiah prophesied that Jesus would be rejected and he would be pierced. Zechariah prophesied that Jesus would be betrayed for thirty pieces of silver.
But there’s another way God spoke in the Old Testament. He did things which were a picture of something else that would come.
For example, God told Abraham to sacrifice his only son, Isaac. That was a picture of God giving HIS only son, Jesus.
Moses led the people of Israel out of slavery in Egypt to the land which God had promised to Abraham. That was a picture of Jesus leading us out of slavery to sin into a place which he had promised us.
God told the people of Israel to sacrifice lambs and mark their doorposts with the blood. This was a picture of Jesus, the Lamb of God, who gave his life for us.
The story of Jonah is a great story about God reaching out to the people of Nineveh. But it is also a picture of Jesus and God’s plan of salvation.
Jonah told the sailors, ‘Throw me into the sea and you’ll be OK.’ I’m sure Jonah expected to die, but he was willing to give his life so the sailors would live. Jonah’s action was a picture of Jesus giving his life so we can live.
Jonah went to people who were not Jews. That is a picture of what Jesus would do. He reaches out to save everyone, everywhere.
But the most important way in which Jonah was a picture of Jesus was what happened with the great fish.
Jonah being swallowed by the fish and emerging alive after three days is a picture of Jesus's death and resurrection. Just as Jonah was 'brought back from the dead' in a sense, Jesus truly rose from the dead after three days.
But to many people, the story of Jonah sounds impossible. How could someone be swallowed by a great fish and three days later emerge alive?!
BUT THE FACT THAT THIS IS IMPOSSIBLE IS THE KEY POINT!
God did an impossible thing in the life of Jonah by bringing him back from the dead after three days. But God did that as a picture of an even more impossible thing he would do in the life of Jesus by bringing HIM back from the dead after three days.
What does that tell us?
It tells us that the God who we believe in makes the impossible possible! The Bible tells us that. The angel Gabriel told Mary that she would have a child. Mary was very surprised, because she wasn’t married. But Gabriel tells her, ‘For nothing will be impossible with God.’
Jesus told his disciples that it was easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle that for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God. Jesus’s disciples were very surprised. But Jesus told them, ‘With man it is impossible, but not with God. For all things are possible with God.’
‘All things are possible with God.’ That is generally true. And it is specifically true in something that’s very important for us.
God did the impossible by bringing Jonah alive out of the belly of the fish.
He did the impossible by raising Jesus from the dead.
God has done the impossible by giving us birth into new life, and he will do the impossible by raising US from the dead and giving US new bodies.
Let me conclude.
In the first part of this talk, I thought about the fact that God gives us second chances. I also thought about the fact that we, like Jonah, need to do what God asks us to do! When we do, God can use US to reach out to people and perhaps draw people back to God.
In the second part of this talk, I thought about how Jonah is a picture of Jesus, especially a picture of how God Jesus from the dead. But God isn’t stopping there. It’s great to remember that just as God delivered Jonah from certain death, and just as he raised Jesus from actual death, God will one day raise US from death to new life.
TALK GIVEN AT ROSEBERY PARK BAPTIST CHURCH, BOURNEMOUTH, UK, 8TH FEBRUARY 2026
