JONAH CHAPTER THREE
INTRODUCTION
During the construction of the Golden Gate Bridge over San Francisco Bay, the work fell badly behind schedule because a number of workers had accidentally fallen from the scaffold to their deaths. The engineers and administrators couldn’t come up with a solution to these costly delays. Then someone suggested that a huge net be hung under the bridge to catch anyone who fell. Despite the enormous cost involved the engineers finally opted for the net idea. After the net went up there were hardly any interruptions to the work. One or two workers did fall but were caught safely by the safety net. What happened was that all the time that had been lost to fear was regained by the replacement of that fear with faith in the net.
What is written in big letters all over the book of Jonah is God’s great grace and patience; His amazing mercy and kindness. How little we deserve it; in fact we don’t deserve it at all. As Richard Baxter put it:
“What an astonishing thought it will be to think of the immeasurable difference between our ‘deservings’ and our ‘receivings.’”
We are not above Jonah; we are not better than Jonah; we are Jonah. We should identify with him. Like Jonah I deserve to be cast away by God; but like Jonah I can know the depth and height of God’s grace.
A SECOND CHANCE
JONAH CH 3 V 1 “The Word of the LORD came to Jonah a second time”
Thomas Edison was working on a strange contraption called a ‘light bulb.’ You know, it took a whole team of men 24 straight hours to put a single light bulb together! The story goes that when Edison was finished with one light bulb, he gave it to a young boy helper, who nervously carried up some stairs. Step by step he cautiously watched his hands clearly frightened of dropping the precious piece of work. You’ve probably guessed by now: the poor boy dropped the bulb at the top of the stairs. It took the entire team of men another twenty-four hours to make another bulb. Tired out and ready for a break Edison was ready to have his new bulb taken upstairs. He gave it to the same young boy who dropped the first one.
In the case of Jonah we’re not looking at a nervous therefore clumsy boy but a deliberately disobedient self-seeking prophet. And we see God deal with Jonah in totally the opposite way to what he deserved.
Around ten years ago a ‘Three Strikes and Your Out’ policy was introduced in response to a general increase in crime in the USA. That meant that once you were convicted for a third felony you could be locked up for 25 years to life. Some States adopted this policy, others didn’t. Today California is the only State in which three felonies of any kind can trigger a life sentence. Thank God He doesn’t enforce such a policy!
God deals with us as he dealt with Jonah – He doesn’t strike us out when we mess up; doesn’t write us off when we badly blot our copybook. He could do; we couldn’t say He was unfair if He did. But God is gracious; that’s His character; that’s what He is like. R T Kendall has said: “God is not obligated to any man and, in so far as Jonah is concerned, God did not even have to send wind! But He did. He did not have to prepare the fish. But He did. He did not have to eject Jonah from the fish. But He did. And He certainly did not have to come to Jonah the second time. But He did!”
God in His unfailing love comes to you and me the second time and secures our heart by his grace; overwhelmed by grace Jonah humbly obeyed God’s call.
A SERIOUS COMMAND
JONAH CH 3 V 2-3 “’Go to the great city of Nineveh and proclaim to it the message I give you.’ Jonah obeyed the word of the LORD and went to Nineveh.”
Do you remember why Jonah was reluctant to go in the first place?
He was fearful and anxious: A lone Jew going into the heart of the empire of a cruel and merciless enemy – the capital city of Assyria.
He was prejudiced: here were a people without God whose lives disgusted Jonah. Proud, violent, cruel beyond measure and worshipping false idols, they were ignorant of the true and living God.
He had a secret suspicion that God actually intended to show some good to Nineveh by sending him with this message. Surely it was far better for God’s people to destroy the evil empire not spare it!
But inside the sea-creature a compassion had been born in Jonah: he began to see the Ninevites as God saw them; sinners in need of salvation. God was preparing to go and do what He wanted him to do in the first place.
What can we learn from this?
(1) Being in God’s will is the only way to true spiritual contentment.
As that great hymn puts it:
‘When we walk with the Lord, in the light of His Word,
What a glory He sheds on our way:
While we do His good will, He abides with us still,
And with all who will trust and obey.
Trust and obey, for there’s no other way,
To be happy in Jesus but to trust and obey.’
Whether we’re called to the mission field; to the Ministry; to serve God in the skills and gifts He has given us in secular employment – it is only as we walk with Him and obey His Word, that we can know His joy.
(2) Being in God’s will doesn’t mean life will be easy! We mustn’t think it was all going to be plain sailing for Jonah now. The task wasn’t easy!
William Carey, the pioneer missionary to India, experienced many troubles. One of his biggest reversals was when on 11 March 1812 a fire destroyed the Serampore press including years of translation work. Carey was in Calcutta at Fort William College at the time and returned to Serampore the next evening. Dr. Marshman had gone to give him the news. With his eyes brimming with tears, Carey said, ‘In one short evening, the labours of years are consumed. How unsearchable are the ways of God! ...The Lord has laid me low that I may look more simply to Him."
What an amazing response! There was no self-pity. Carey and his helpers simply worked on with revised versions of lost work that actually resulted in even better translations. Supporters in England rallied with funds to the point that they were asked to stop their contributions. Out of fire came refinement in character and work.
(3) Being in God’s will we’ll start to see other people through God’s eyes – not through our fears or prejudices. We’ll look beyond their attitude, their behaviour, and their sins and see people who are without God and in need of His mercy. We’ll demonstrate the sort of love God teaches. As D M Lloyd-Jones said: “Our treatment of others must never depend upon what they are, or upon what they do to us.”
Now Jonah was humbled and obedient; he went in faith to proclaim the message he was given. What sort of message was it? On the face of it, it wasn’t a very welcome word: JONAH CH 3 V 4 “’Forty more days and Nineveh will be overturned.” This was no doubt a summary of what Jonah said. It was a real warning; a wake up call! It was a serious command to repent. And God was gracious to given it - it’s a kindness to warn of danger.
We can draw from this the that fact that the Good News of Jesus tells bad news so that we’ll then appreciate the good news – we’re sinners and we’re in big trouble with God as we stand!
On 21 Sept 1938 a monstrous hurricane hit the East coast of the United States. The first storm wave struck the coast at 2.30 pm; so powerful was it that its impact actually registered on a seismograph in Alaska! What was strange was that the meteorologists failed to warn the public about the storm – either they ignored their instruments or simply didn’t believe.
One striking story that came out of this fearsome storm concerned a Long Islander who a few days earlier had bought a barometer through a New York store. It arrived in the post on the morning of September 21. To his annoyance the needle pointed below 29 where the dial read, ‘Hurricanes and Tornados’. He shook it; he banged it against the wall but the stubborn needle wouldn’t budge. Indignant he repacked it, drove to the post office, and mailed it back. While he was gone, his house blew away. It seems it simply didn’t occur to him that the barometer might have been right!
The Bible tells you and I that we shall all one day stand before God: ROMANS CH 14 V 10-12 “We shall all stand before God’s judgement seat. It is written: ‘As surely as I live’, says the Lord, ‘Every knee will bow before me; every tongue will confess to God’. So then each of us will give an account of himself to God” God is so merciful that He gives us all warning; we have the perfect barometer - the bible - that points out the storm ahead.
It’s a big lesson for us to see that though Jonah’s message was humanly speaking a total turn off for the Ninevites, it was the truth and he was duty bound to proclaim it. So we too, the Christian Church, must be faithful to the whole message of the bible. But make it known in true compassion and love.
Also, if you’re not a believer today, if you can’t cope with the forecast are you going to blame the barometer, ignore it, throw it away? God’s word to you, as it is to all, is a serious command to repent before the storm..
A SAVING CHANGE
How would the Ninevites respond to Jonah’s message? With incredulity? Would they laugh at it; make fun at its expense? Or maybe just ignore it as irrelevant? Perhaps they’d turn nasty and persecute the messenger?
We see different responses to the Word in the Bible. In ACTS 17 V18 when the Apostle Paul spoke in the market place at Athens many said “What is this babbler trying to say?”
After his public address on Mars Hill we’re told in ACTS 17 v 32 “when they hears about the resurrection of the dead, some of them sneered…”
In other places where Paul and his companions took God’s Word they were cruelly persecuted and even imprisoned and threatened with death.
So what happened to Jonah then as he preached in this God-less; violent and proud city of Nineveh? JONAH CH 3 V 5 “The Ninevites believed…” They heard and…instead of all those negative responses we’ve spoken about…they actually took heed and received what Jonah said!
Why such a remarkable reaction? They recognised Jonah’s message was from the true and living God. That’s what verse 5 tells us: “The Ninevites believed” Jonah? No, they believed ”God.”
The Ninevites saw that the message wasn’t just Jonah’s word but was from God, the God of the heavens and the earth. How did they come to this conviction? God’s Word from Jonah must have been accompanied by the power of God, by the Holy Spirit. For God’s Word to be effective in people’s lives God’s power work.
This was the experience of the Apostle Paul too. Yes, the Word under his ministry was rejected as we’ve seen, but he also saw the Word change lives and turn places upside down. And how did he account for this? 1 THESS CH 1 V 5: “Our Gospel came to you not simply with words, but also with power, with the Holy Spirit and with deep conviction.”
A W Tozer rightly said: “The Gospel is light but only the Spirit can give sight.”
It’s important for the modern day church to remind herself that it isn’t reliance on finely spoken words; bang up to date media resources; personal charisma; good business techniques, that brings people to God, but as Paul says: “not simply…words…but power.” And such power comes through prayer; dependence on God.
David Brainerd was an early missionary to the North American Indians. On 9 June 1745 he was in Neshaminy helping in a local church. He spoke in a Communion Service on Isaiah Ch 53 V 10: “Yet it pleased the Lord to bruise him.” He recorded in his dairy: ‘Here God gave me great assistance in addressing sinners: and the word was attended with amazing power: many scores, if not hundreds, in that great assembly, consisting of three or four thousand were affected…’
A later entry for Sunday, 25 Aug 1745 in Cross-week-sung (New Jersey) says he preached from Luke 15:3-7 on the parable of the lost sheep: ‘A number of white people being present, I made an address to them at the close of my discourse to the Indians; but could not so much as keep them orderly; for scores of them kept walking and gazing about, and behaved more indecently than any Indians I have ever addressed…’
Both times David Brainerd faithfully ministered the Word in dependence on God, but one time the word was attended with power, the other time it wasn’t. God’s hand decided.
As a result of Jonah’s preaching being attended with saving power the Ninevites from the lowest servant to the King on his throne, believed the message. The King rose from his throne and sat in the dust – a sign of repentance (V6) and sent out a royal decree throughout the city calling on his people to call on God and give up their evil ways and violence. Why? Because, as he said, JONAH CH 3 V 9: “Who knows? God may yet relent and with compassion turn from His fierce anger so that we will not perish.”
What may seem to have been a very negative message carried the seed of hope in it – and this the King recognised. “Why was this strange lone Jew sent to us? Why did God send him all this way with His word?” Also, it’s possible, likely even, that Jonah recounted his own story and all that had happened to him? “Yes, God is merciful”, the King realised, “Could it not be that He intends to show mercy to us?” The King didn’t play around with the message: he took it seriously and acted on it.
A SOVEREIGN’S COMPASSION
JONAH CH 3 V 10 “when God saw what they did and how they turned from their evil ways, He had compassion and did
not bring upon them the destruction He had threatened.”
God’s in His mercy is quick to act. As soon as He saw that the Ninevites reception of the message was genuine He had compassion and relented. We can say, ‘It’s just like God to do that! PSALM 103 V 8 “The LORD is compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in love”
This was the basis of Jonah’s later complaint to God in CH 4 V 2 “I knew that you are a gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger and abounding in love, a God who relents from sending calamity.”
God had mercy and showed kindness because it’s part of His wonderful perfection as God! God is never reluctant to forgive; never has second thoughts about lavishing life, peace and joy on sinful people. He is not - I say it reverently – a spiritual killjoy.
Thomas Watson illustrates this beautifully from a tiny creature of nature: “The bee naturally gives honey, it stings only when it is provoked; so God does not punish till He can bear no longer.”
What does this say to us?
(1) Christian, the Bible makes it clear that it’s part of Christian character to be merciful, MATT CH 5 V 7 “Blessed are the merciful for they will be shown mercy.”
D M Lloyd-Jones: “Because they [Christians] have already obtained mercy, therefore, they are merciful.”
Because as believers we know and experience the mercy of God in our own lives, what a privilege we have to show it towards others. “God has shown mercy to me – had pity on me – in Jesus Christ so I am going to demonstrate mercy to people around me.”
If you fall, if you sin against your loving Father, there is grace to restore you: mercy to keep you safe. Remember the great net strung out under the Golden Gate Bridge that removed fear and replaced it with faith? What bible text does that remind us off? DEUT CH 33 V 27 “The eternal God is your refuge and underneath are the everlasting arms” OR “underneath him are the arms of the eternal One.”
(2) Non-Christian, how do we know that the Ninevites truly repented; took God’s serious command to heart? (V 10) “…God saw what they did and how they turned from their evil ways.”
True repentance involves turning away from sin: “Remorse is being sorry. Repentance is being sorry enough to stop” ANON. To truly repent includes an about turn in our lives; no longer heading off away from God, but rejecting our past sinful ways and turning our feet into His path. Faith sees God’s mercy, and from faith repentance is born. The two are inseparable; they go hand in hand.
Where do we see God’s mercy in its highest and greatest expression in the history of our world? In His giving of Jesus Christ His eternal Son up to the cross of Calvary. God’s unbending justice and rich mercy met there at the cross. Justice rightly demanded that we answer for our sins; mercy called for compassion and forgiveness to us in our misery. God in His wisdom satisfied both – for the Son of God bore the spiritual agony that we deserved so that we might be delivered and set free!
As Vernon Higham declares in his great modern hymn:
‘Great is the Gospel of our glorious God,
Where mercy met the anger of God’s rod:
A penalty was paid and pardoned bought,
And sinners lost at last to Him were brought.’
The Ninevites several thousand years ago did not have the good news in such a total and complete light, yet they responded to what they heard. What will you do with the light you are given in Jesus Christ? This is what Jesus said to the people of His generation among whom He walked and taught, performed miracles:
MATTHEW CH 12 V 41: “The men of Nineveh will stand up at the judgment with this generation and condemn it; for they repented at the preaching of Jonah, and now One greater than Jonah is here”
Don’t be like that - hear the voice of the Son of God today and obey to your eternal blessing!
