The Ministry of the Reluctant, Rebellious Prophet: Jonah Chapter 3
Today's message is the third in a series on Jonah, with today's message centering on Jonah Chapter 2.
In the past two messages, which we studied chapters 1 and 2 respectively, we learned that God will have done what he wills.
In studying Jonah chapter 1, we saw how Jonah, a prophet of God, tried to do what some Christians do today when they are in sin--run from God. Can we run from God? Of course not. God is everywhere at the same time and knows everything. We may think sometimes that God isn't watching, but that's just wrong. God is there.
When we do something wrong, we should know that we are doing wrong. Our conscience should fire all over the place, and we should be under conviction not to do it.
The second thing is that we have guilt over the things that we do wrong. As soon as we do something wrong, we should have a mindset to make things right with God, and to make things right with those that we sin against.
God said go!, Jonah said no, and God made the storm to blow. We saw how there were five miracles in Jonah chapter 1; the storm, the lot falling on Jonah; the storm calming when Jonah hit the water, God prepared a great fish as the fourth and Jonah being swallowed by the great fish being the fifth. Go, No, Blow, Throw, Swallow.
We also saw the sailors go from being idol worshipping pagans to saved saints as they had a fear, or respect of God as the creator, made vows, and honored Him with sacrifice.
In Jonah chapter 2, we saw how Jonah called out to God in despair, dedicated Himself again toward God and to God's service, and was delivered from the belly of the fish. Could Jonah have lived three days in the belly of the fish? Yes. The sulphur bottom whale and the whale shark were two "sea monsters" that could easily have been the fish, and men have been swallowed and lived to tell the tale. Did Jonah die, and was resurrected? Maybe.
Now, let's look at chapter 3, which is on page 1324 of your pew bibles, or if you have your own Bible, it is after Obadiah and before Micah in the latter part of the Old Testament, just a few books before Matthew which is the first book in the New Testament.
Today, we are going to learn some great stuff about God, and how he works in the lives of the saved and the unsaved. How he works in mighty ways to bring those to Him, those that seem beyond saving. God can fool us, at least it seems that way, but in truth it is God who is all wise and us that can sometimes be tainted by our preconcieved notions.
Here are the three words for today that are the key words: Warning, mourning, and transforming.
Now, let's look at Chapter 3, verse 1 & 2.
Jonah 3:1-10
CHAPTER 3
1 Now the word of the LORD came to Jonah the second time, saying,
2 "Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and preach to it the message that I tell you."
There are a four key phrases in verses one and two, starting with two in verse 1: WORD OF THE LORD and THE SECOND TIME.
I've said before that most often, God does not speak directly to us, in a verbal nature. Instead, it's a strong pull on the heart. But in the case of His prophets, God did speak to them, and He spoke to them often. THE WORD OF THE LORD means that God spoke to Jonah and gave him a message.
Next, we see the key phrase, "THE SECOND TIME". Our God is a God of second chances. This is something that I want you to always remember--God does not give us just one chance and then writes us off. He loves us, and works through trial to bring us to the state that he wants us to be in when we do wrong. It's like I mentioned earlier, conscience and guilt are tools that God uses.
Let's suppose that the President were to order one of his Army generals to initiate a miliary campaign on Yugoslavia, a country that was oppressing it's people, to set them free. The general, who hated these people because of atrocities committed against people of Bosnia, some of which were his grandparents and aunts and uncles, said no and instead went AWOL. When the M. P. s caught up to this general, what would they do? In prison, and he would be stripped of rank and never would serve again.
But not God. God is a God of second chances, and God did not fire Jonah. Instead, he brought him back and restored him to his duty, just like prodigal son was brought back to the family by his father after he squandered his half of the family fortune. God brings us back, because we are his children. Isn't this tremendous?
In verse two, we see the phrase "that great city". I'd mentioned before that it was not because of the great morality or the great structures of the town that God said this, but it was because of it's size. Nineveh was indeed a great city in archecture, but the size was the thing.
Some critical historians scoff at this statement, because the city of Nineveh proper had a circumference of about 27 miles.
Now, let me ask you a question. If you go to Bridgeville, or to Oakland, or to Shadyside, where would you say that you are going? Pittsburgh, in a generic sense.
It was not just Nineveh proper, but it was the cities surrounding Nineveh that pulled the total reference. Like I had mentioned before, the population size was somewhere between 600,000 to 1 million people in all.
The next phrase is "the message that I tell you". What message? That too has caused some discussion between theologians, and I'll hit that in just a minute when we see what it is that Jonah said.
3 So Jonah arose and went to Nineveh, according to the word of the LORD. Now Nineveh was an exceedingly great city, a three-day journey in extent.
Two key phrases here, with the first being that Jonah arose and went. If God put you in the belly of a fish of sorts, would't you go? Have you ever wondered how God would have responded to Jonah if he had not gone, and tried to run again? My personal thought is this--God would have repeated the process again and again until Jonah went. Think for a moment about those things that we know that we should do, but don't do and put off. We get into abit of a tight spot, and as soon as we're out we go right back. God fires our conscience again, and again, and again.
Some kids are the same way. It takes a few trips to the woodshed for some kids to get the idea that whatever they are doing is wrong. Today some kids respond by telling their friends and all that will listen that their mom or dad are just unfair, that they hate them, that they are just downright mean and one step higher on the morality list than Hitler. Kids, I'm going to tell you this again, so pay attention closely. When your mom and dad have to tell you something over and over again, wouldn't it just save everyone alot of grief, and you included, if you just did what they asked? They'll be happy, you won't get into trouble and God is pleased in the process. Ephesians 6:1 tells us, and our kids "Children obey your parents in the Lord for this is right." The words "In the Lord" make it pretty clear that you as parents can't demand your kids to do something that is against God's wishes either. So, it's a two way street.
"Three day journey in extent" is another picked on phrase by the critics. They say, "Now wait a minute. Nineveh was hundreds and hundreds of miles away from Gath-Hepher. How could someone walk there in three days?"
The answer is simple. To walk from one side of Nineveh to the other is three days. Simple enough.
4 And Jonah began to enter the city on the first day's walk. Then he cried out and said, "Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown!"
The walls around the Nineveh area were 100 foot high and could host a race of three chariots on top of it, much like the wall around Babylon. It had 1,200 sentry towers, and there was enough space that, during an enemy siege, they could grow enough corn within the walls to easily feed 600,000 people.
First, Jonah had to enter the city, and that was no easy task. But ask yourselves two questions--why would they let him in and why would anyone listen to him?
The key phrase in verse 4 is the sermon of Jonah: "Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown!"
There are some men of God that believe that Jonah preached a long message. I personally don't believe that. What does the verse say he said? It said "Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown!" Not only that, but Jonah did not just dislike these people, but he hated them. I'd think that Jonah did what he was told and no more. I think that he basically went from street corner to streetcorner over a period of 40 days and said,
"Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown!"
Now we come back to those two questions:
1) Why would they let him in and 2) Why would they listen?
I think that there are two reasons that answer both, one physical, and one spiritual.
First, we have to remember that Jonah was in the stomach of the fish for three days. During that time, he was exposed to the hydrochloric acid of the fish, and he would have had a bleached out, yellowish, blotchy looking face. This alone would have startled most people. Today it would not have as much effect, as we see weirdos like Marilyn Manson wearing makeup and strange get-ups to call attention to themselves. But, this was not the case with Jonah. Do you honestly think that Jonah wanted to look like that?
Second was spiritual. When God sends you on a mission, and it truly is God's will, do you honestly think that for one second that it will fail? God worked mightily in the preaching of Jonah even though Jonah didn't want to be involved.
How did Jonah preach? Let me paint a picture. You have this guy that comes in from out of town, a foreigner. You are natually suspicious, but really are bugged when you see his face, that he's yellow, brown and looks like someone from either outer space or the survivor of a reactor accident at Chernobyl. Next, this guy, an enemy gets up to preach and all that he says is "Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown!" Conviction comes to your heart, because you know that this is not any ordinary message and that this man, by the way he is dressed, is a Hebrew and that his God is powerful. Maybe you were in on a little campaign where you sliced up a few Jews, and the dying breath from one of these men was "May God have venegence on your soul". Now that had stayed with you all of this time, and now you realize that the God of the Hebrews has finally called your number. Not just you, but all of your family, you, your spouse, your kids, your brothers and sisters and cousins and so on. But not just them, this God of the Hebrews took that little excursion personal. He's not just coming after you, but your neighbors, in fact all of the people in the Greater Nineveh area.
Fear enters your soul. Maybe you'd heard what you thought to be legend, about how God wiped out the ancient cities of Sodom and Gomorrah with fire and brimstone and nothing was left. No God you ever worshipped ever did something like that. Sure, maybe it just happened to rain when you bowed down to your little statue, or maybe you won a bet on how long it would take a Hebrew to die when you cut his jugular vein after you prayed a fervent prayer. But what about those thousands of times when your prayers went unanswered? What about the blood that you saw spilled, and you knew that while you thought that it was okay to kill others, you'd never kill one of your own.
All of a sudden, it makes sense. You know that this Hebrew God is coming, and you are in the worst situation of your life. All of a sudden, those things that seemed to matter did not matter any more. The squeaky hinge on the front door that drove you nuts each time that the door opened no longer bothers you. The taxes due the king next week? Well, what will they do if you can't pay them? There's nothing more they can do to you than this Hebrew God could do in forty days from now.
That nagging in the back of your brain is kicking in. You know that there's only one way out, and that is to be humble before God and ask Him to stop. You know that your number is up, and maybe, just maybe this God will answer your prayer.
VERSES 5 and 6:
5 So the people of Nineveh believed God, proclaimed a fast, and put on sackcloth, from the greatest to the least of them.
6 Then word came to the king of Nineveh; and he arose from his throne and laid aside his robe, covered himself with sackcloth and sat in ashes.
Let's look at some of the keys here. First, they believed God. There are some that doubt the sincerity of the Ninevites and their conversion. Myself, I feel that their conversion for the most part was genuine. There would be some that would say so what, there are some that would go along just because the king pronounced that it must be so (we'll see that in the next verse). People that come to the Lord in faith do so because God calls to them, not because they are forced to do it. Constantine found this out when he told all in the Roman empire to convert, be baptized or die by the sword.
Overall though, I feel that most people came to the Lord. Now some scholars would say "If their conversion was true, why is it that Nineveh was overthrown at God's hand about 150 years later.
These folks believed God, and that God would indeed follow through with what he said he would do. All of the people dressed in sackcloth, basically burlap. And this was not just the adults, but also "the least of them", the children.
The king of Assyria, who sat on the throne in Nineveh, heard the message but more than likely not directly. What did the king do? He laid aside his robe which indicates that he humbled himself before God by shedding his royal clothing and appearing before God as no more than a man that was begging for his life. Ashes were also a sign of humbleness and sorrow in the heart.
7 And he caused it to be proclaimed and published throughout Nineveh by the decree of the king and his nobles, saying, Let neither man nor beast, herd nor flock, taste anything; do not let them eat, or drink water. (FASTING)
8 But let man and beast be covered with sackcloth, and cry mightily to God; yes, let every one turn from his evil way and from the violence that is in his hands.
9 Who can tell if God will turn and relent (repent, KJV), and turn away from His fierce anger, so that we may not perish?
Obviously, the king new of this Hebrew God.
10 Then God saw their works, that they turned from their evil way; and God relented from the disaster that He had said He would bring upon them, and He did not do it. (NKJ)
Now let me ask you a question: Does God ever change his mind? What does the text say here? He relented. The Hebrew wording means that He "changed His mind".
Does God change His mind? No, because He knows what is going to happen in the long run. But we as people that don't know the future do not know what will happen.
These people were on their way to hell. All of us, at the moment we were born, started on a path that would send us to hell--hey we were already on the way there. But God saved us when we cried out to Him. He touched our hearts, and we can cry out to Him. He knew it, but because we do have a very limited free will, we had to ask.
The same thing with the Ninevites. God responded to their choice, but it was God that put them in a position to make that choice. The Bible tells us that we are dead in our trespasses and sins, and that there are none that seek after God, no not one. But God shows us through our trials that He orchestrates that there is no other choice left. The people of Nineveh did the same.
Now just take a minute and think about this. Jonah hated the Ninevites with a passion. He was even willing to disobey God directly to not have to go on this mission. But, God showed Jonah the way, and taught him a lesson that we can all learn from.
Now think for just a minute. Think of someone that you don't like. Maybe it's someone that broke up your marriage. Maybe it's someone that hurt you, either physically or mentally. Maybe somebody hit you in the pocket and stuck you for a large sum of money. Maybe it's someone that has betrayed you. Maybe there is a person that you don't think that God can save, or that you would die where you stand if you found out that they accepted the Lord and saw the proof in their works. ARE YOU WILLING TO BE A JONAH, AND TELL GOD NO?
But what if you are standing in the path of your own salvation? What if it's you that say that you aren't good enough to be saved? Maybe you say that you have done too much, and too much water has gone under the bridge. What about the Ninevites? God saved them, and they were more evil than you are.
God Gave Us His Word--I Jn 5:13 These things I have written to you who believe in (trustworthy belief) the name of the Son of God, that you may know that you have eternal life, and that you may continue to believe in the name of the Son of God.
Rom 3:23 for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,
Rom 6:23a For the wages of sin is death (first death is physcial, second death next)
Rev 21:8 "But the cowardly, unbelieving, abominable, murderers, sexually immoral, sorcerers, idolaters, and all liars shall have their part in the lake which burns with fire and brimstone, which is the second death."(also is eternal separation from God and all that's good)
Rom 6:23b ...but the gift (can't be taken back) of God is eternal life in (or with) Christ Jesus our Lord.
Rom 10:9-10, 13
9 that if you confess (Gk on the same page) with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in (trustworthy belief) your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved.
10 For with the heart one believes unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.
Rom 10:13 For "whoever calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.(from eternity in torment)"
