TITLE: Jonah: The Work of The Lord
TEXT: Jonah 1:1-3
TOPIC: Evangelism and Missions
DATE: June 6, 2004 AM
Jonah 1:1-3
1 The word of the LORD came to Jonah the son of Amittai saying,
2 "Arise, go to Nineveh the great city, and cry against it, for their wickedness has come up before Me."
3 But Jonah rose up to flee to Tarshish from the presence of the LORD. So he went down to Joppa, found a ship which was going to Tarshish, paid the fare, and went down into it to go with them to Tarshish from the presence of the LORD.
Something tragic happens when the Church turns in on itself; when its major objectives are good services with good music and good preaching, and numerical growth. Many so called "growing churches" are merely centers for reprocessing saints. The reality is this, the larger a church becomes the less evangelistically responsible it needs to be in order to grow and the more paid staff does the work that the membership should be doing. These issues threaten the future of every congregation in America. If all we’re doing is shifting saints around while doing the work they should be doing, then most congregations are only a generation or two away from extinction. At best, they will become weak, emaciated, anemic, well entertained facsimiles.
This section of the little book of Jonah beckons us to address these issues and assists us in calling NT believers, especially leaders, to renewed efforts in at home evangelism and foreign missions. Verse two spotlights three important aspects of this issue. Please excuse me as I rearrange the order in which God presents them to Jonah.
1. First, we will consider The City.
2. Second, we will consider The Cause.
3. Third, we will consider The Command.
I. The City.
Nineveh was the capital city of Assyria and the cruel archenemy of Israel and Judah. God refers to it as "the great city." It was one of the largest, if not the largest city in the world of its day. It was great both in physical size and population.
- In verse three (3) of Chapter Three (3), Jonah indicates that it took three days to walk through the city.
- In verse eleven (11) of Chapter Four (4) we are told that the city contained 120,000 small children; infants and toddlers. This suggests a total population of somewhere between 450,000 to 600,000 souls.
Are you aware that over one-half of the world’s population lives in urban centers?
- In California, 91% of the population lives in cities.
- By the year 2010, three (3) out of every four (4) people on earth will live in cities.
We must have a new vision of Christian missions and evangelism and it must place tremendous emphasis on the cities of our world. We must put aside our fears and self-interest, and invade these enemy strongholds with the presence of God and the proclamation of the Gospel.
I don’t want to bore you with statistics, but are you aware that 39.7% of the world’s 6.3 billion people--a figure that translates into more than 2.5 billion people--have never had an adequate Christian witness? Simply put, more than one-third of the world’s population has never heard the Gospel for the first time. That, ladies and gentlemen, is sobering. Amercican churches are fighting over governmental control of the congregation while 1/3 of the world has never heard the God’s love. Something is drastically wrong with that picture.
Modern, educated, economically prosperous European countries such as France contain millions of unreached natives and immigrants, and most of them are located in the urban centers of Europe.
Many of the inhabitants of the inner cities of America are without a gospel voice. It is for this reason that the School of Urban Missions in New Orleans is training an invasion force for inner city evangelism. Pastors are being trained to plant and pastor inner city churches in places like New Orleans, Detroit, Chicago, New York, Boston, and Los Angeles. This summer, young people from our church will participate in a week long outreach to the inner city of New Orleans. They will pay $300 each for the privilege of being an inner city missionary.
We don’t have to go to Nineveh or Africa or South America or New Orleans to reach the lost.
- They live next door to us.
- They work with us.
- They were born in Iraq or India, but now attend ULM or LATech.
- They wait on us in restaurants.
- They give us technical support on the telephone.
- They go to school with us and
- some attend church with us.
TRANS: Like our world, Nineveh was a great city with a great problem and no word from God. It is here that we are given The Cause for Jonah’s prophetic mission.
II. The Cause.
Nineveh contained a large population of people who were in serious trouble with God. According to verse two (2) of Chapter One (1), Nineveh’s wickedness had reached such proportions that it had become an insult to God. Their sin was appealing to God for punishment. (See Gen. 4:10; 18:20-21.) Nineveh’s wickedness included…
- idolatry,
- pride (cp. Is. 10:5 19; 36:18 20),
- cruel oppression of the nations they had conquered (2 Kings 15:29; 17:6; Is. 36:16, 17), and
- inhumane warfare.
Although sin is an individual thing, here it is viewed in a corporate or community setting. God has in focus the sin of an entire city-"their wickedness." It isn’t one person that is in danger of God’s judgment, but a city of 450,000 to 600,000 souls.
Please note with me that no one was praying for Nineveh, definitely not Jonah. Nineveh doesn’t come up on heaven’s radar screen because of prayerful concern, but because the sin alarm went off in heaven’s throne room.
- If ever a city needed a word from God, this city did.
- If ever a city needed a prophetic visit, Nineveh did.
- If ever a city needed someone to sound an alarm, Nineveh did.
We too live in a wicked world that is on a collision course with the judgment of God. Our own nation is responsible for the legalized murder of more than 32,000,000 babies since Roe v. Wade. Our cities are filled with violence and immorality.
Someone has suggested that the only thing that keeps the world from being consumed by the judgment of God is the blood washed remnant that has not bowed its knee to Baal. (Ravenhill) While this may be true in part, the greater truth is found in the words of 2 Peter 3:9 - "The Lord…is not willing for any to perish but for all to come to repentance."
- Calvary wasn’t God’s response to man’s request for salvation. Faith is man’s response to God’s provision.
- God, not Jonah, initiated this prophetic mission because He has a heart for fallen man. The trip to Nineveh wasn’t Jonah’s idea. It was and is God’s idea!
- Evangelism and missions are not God’s response to the Church’s heart-cry for the lost. Evangelism and missions are the Church’s response to God’s heart for the lost.
- We do not pray to stir God’s heart toward the lost, but to get God’s heart for the lost.
This suggests that failure in evangelism and missions is not God’s failure, but ours. We are surrounded by hundreds of people who are headed for a Christless eternity, but are we close enough to God to see their need and know His heart?
TRANS: Nineveh was in great danger, but God’s people didn’t care or wanted it so. God in mercy determined to bridge the gap between Nineveh’s problem and His provision, but he needed a man to bring the message. It is here that God gave Jonah The Command.
III. The Command.
Jonah was the first missionary and the only OT prophet sent to a Gentile nation. The word of the Lord that came to Jonah commanded him to…
- Arise! God’s first word to Jonah is a stirring word! The Hebrew term translated "Arise" is "qum" and calls Jonah to rise up from a reclining position. The command to "Arise" suggests an end to inactivity and a preparation for energetic participation.
o When Israel was defeated at Ai, "Joshua tore his clothes and fell to the earth on his face before the ark of the Lord…" (Josh. 4:6). God’s response to Joshua was, "Arise" or "Get up" (Josh. 7:13).
o It was the term Pharaoh used when he commanded Moses and Aaron to leave Egypt: "…Rise up, get out from among my people…" (Exodus 12:31).
God calls Jonah from a posture of inactivity, indifference and apathy, and commands him to prepare himself for active involvement in God’s work. He is to arise and remain on his feet.
- Go to Nineveh! Once on his feet, Jonah is given an apostleship. He is sent on a mission to a specific place and a particular people.
- Cry against it! Once in the place of appointed ministry and in the midst of the people to whom God was sending him, he is to proclaim the appointed message.
There is too much similarity between this text and that of Mark 16:15 and Matthew 28:19, not to give them closer attention.
Mark 16:15 - And Jesus said to them, "Go into all the world and preach the gospel to all creation."
Matthew 28:19 - "Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations…"
The "Go" of Mark 16:15 and Matthew 28:19 have not been withdrawn. They contain as much imperative authority as they did on the day in which Jesus spoke them. Like Jonah…
- We have been called to arise and go to the entire world for the purpose of proclaiming the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ.
- We have been commissioned to disciple the nations.
- We have been given a divine mandate to proclaim Jesus’ finished work to every tongue and tribe and clan in every…
o jungle,
o hamlet,
o great city,
o inner city community,
o street corner,
o country village, and
o dung hill.
We have been commissioned to…"spread the tidings ’round, wherever man is found, wherever human hearts and human woes abound; [It is the privilege of ] … every Christian tongue to proclaim the joyful sound: the Savior has come, the Savior has come!"
From the deserts of Arizona to the dry lands of Kenya, we have been sent to proclaim the joyful sound, "Jesus saves, Jesus saves."
If we are willing to take an unbiased look at the world around us and to see it through the eyes of Jesus, we will see that today’s missionary opportunities are abundant.
For instance, if current trends continue, there will be 40 million AIDS orphans worldwide by 2010. That’s only six years from today. Who will care for them? A survey by the Barna Research Group shows that only 3% of evangelical Christians said they "definitely" would help children who have been orphaned because of AIDS.
One sign of hope comes from a group of high school students at Wheaton Academy in West Chicago, Illinois. Seniors from this suburban Christian school raised $3,000 to build a three-room schoolhouse for AIDS orphans in Zambia. The entire student body also got involved, donating money normally spent on clothes and fast-food; and raising money with cookouts, concerts, and other events. At the end of the school year, the students presented a check for $72,000 to representatives from World Vision.
Citation: Ed Gilbreath, Christian Reader (Sep/Oct 2003), p. 6
Of course, $72,000 and a schoolhouse is just a small dent in the massive epidemic that is devastating the nations of Africa and other countries, but it’s something. It’s proof that when God’s people obey Him, they can accomplish great things.
Conclusion
Our situation isn’t much different than Jonah’s. The Cities of America and the world are filled with people who are headed for a Christless eternity. Millions are under the judgment of God, but God has provided for their recovery. The problem isn’t sin, but ignorance of God’s provision for sin. The work of the Church is to go and tell the World that God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, so that whosoever believes in Him will not experience the wrath of God, but have everlasting life.
While we’re busy having good services and swapping pews, Nineveh is in need of a Word from the Lord. That is the task God has given the Church-"Go into all the world and preach the Gospel." That is the Work of the Lord we are to be doing until He comes. Jesus said, "…this Gospel of the Kingdom shall be preached in the whole world for a witness to all the nations, and then the end shall come" (Mt. 24:14). The inhabitants of Nineveh will perish, not because there is no provision, not because there is no Word from the Lord for them, but because no one is doing the Work of the Lord among them.
PW: Sir, young lady, you can go back to a time when your heart burned for the lost of our world. Your dreams were of you preaching Jesus to dark skinned, brown eyed people. It was so real, you could take me back to the very altar where you wept for people you did not know, but you were closer to God then. Being a missionary wasn’t your idea, it was God’s desire for your life. Something’s happened to your dream; to your heart. An enemy has turned your head with promises he cannot keep. Your desire to be a part of this world has robbed you. God’s word to you this morning is, "Arise, go, and cry."
© 2004, by Louis Bartet, all rights reserved.
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Third in a series from the Book of Jonah
Other Sermons: http://www.pointag.org
