Bible Studies
Jonah, that Great Evangelist! (Jonah 1:1-3)
Series: Additional StudiesIntroduction:
1. Reading of Jonah 1:1-3. 2. Have you ever read the great commission accounts of how we are to go into all the world and make disciples and think to yourself, “That’s not for me! Let someone else go!?” 3. We may think that we are ill equipped. We do not like to travel. We are of the wrong personality type—introverted rather than extroverted. “I don’t know enough to do that work.” Nevertheless, we would like to see people saved. 4. But Jonah seems to be of a different ilk. He seems to have been perfectly content with God’s plan to destroy Nineveh. He did not want to intervene with a word from his mouth that could allow them to escape from their coming calamity. 5. What made him so hard-hearted? Had the Ninevites raped his wife? Murdered his children? Burned his house? Posted a video on the Internet insulting his God? Killed 3000+ of his countrymen in a 9/11 attack? What?Discussion:
I. The historical background of the book of Jonah may give us some insight.A. While liberal scholars criticize the traditional dating of the book of Jonah the biblical evidence is clear.
1. The Jonah of the book is identified in verse one as “Jonah, son of Amittai.”
2. A similar designation is used in 2 Kings 14:25 of “Jonah, son of Amittai, the prophet, who was of Gath-hepher.” Gath-hepher is located about 5 miles north of Nazareth.
3. This dates Jonah in the 8th century B.C. (during the period of Jereboam II).
B. This historical period was dominated by the Assyrian Empire. The Assyrians were a feared and despised enemy.
1. Nineveh was the capital of the Assyrian Empire.
2. Religiously she was polytheistic.
3. Militarily they were known for their brutality. They ruled their empire and subdued nations with absolute terror.
a. In an Assyrian War Bulletin (1000 B.C.) a ruler described his work, “I destroyed, I demolished, I burned, I took their warriors prisoner and impaled them on stakes before their cities . . . flayed the nobles, as many as had rebelled, and spread their skins out on the piles (of dead corpses) . . . many of the captives I burned in a fire. Many I took alive; from some I cut off their hands to the write, from other I cut off their noses, ears and fingers: I put out the eyes of many of the soldiers.”
b. It continues: “I slew two hundred and sixty fighting men: I cut off their heads and made pyramids thereof. I slew one of every two. I built a wall before the great gates of the city; I flayed the chief men of the rebels, and I covered the wall with their skins. Some of them were enclosed alive in the bricks of the wall, some of them were crucified on stakes along the wall: I caused a great multitude of them to be flayed in my presence, and I covered the wall with their skins. I gathered together the heads in the form of crowns, and their pierced bodies in the form of garlands.”
4. The book of Nahum is essentially a prophecy against Nineveh. Read 3:1-4.
5. In 612 B.C. Nineveh was destroyed.
C. Did Jonah have good reason for withholding God’s graciousness from the ancient city? It could be reasoned so.
D. Do you have good reason for withholding God’s graciousness from those who have sinned against you? Perhaps. But your hurts, your prejudices, not even your hatreds and resentments can stand in the way of God’s graciousness.
II. Jonah attempted to escape the presence of God.A. Jonah rose up to flee to Tarshish from the presence of the Lord.
B. He went to Joppa, found a ship, paid the fare and set sail.
C. But just as it is when we set our hearts contrary to the will of God Jonah found himself in a storm.
1. Have you ever opposed God’s will for yourself and found yourself experiencing hardship and difficulty?
2. It affected the people in Jonah’s association—the sailors.
D. These sailors were idolaters. Each man cried to his god. Their perception was that someone on board was in opposition to God. They cast lots and the lot fell to Jonah. The sailors were even more frightened when they found out what he had was doing and that it was the Lord that he was opposing.
1. Unknowingly they were assisting Jonah in his opposition to God.
2. When they became aware of what they were doing they aligned themselves with the Lord, prayed to Him, cast Jonah overboard and offered sacrifice to God.
3. We need to pursue such a course when we find ourselves contributing to someone else’s avoidance of responsibility to God. We need to get on God’s side in a hurry and oppose the one that is in opposition to Him. Cf. 1 Cor. 5.
E. We know the account of how Jonah was swallowed by a fish and then vomited up on dry land.
1. The text does not say where he was vomited up.
2. Perhaps he was vomited up across from Nineveh.
3. God said, “Arise, go to Nineveh and proclaim to it the proclamation which I am going to tell you.”
4. Jonah did it. He said, “Yet forty days and Nineveh will be overthrown.”
III. The people repented!A. They believed God, from the greatest down to the least of them.
B. The king arose from his throne, laid aside his robe and covered himself with sackcloth and sat on the ashes in expression of his sorrow and repentance.
C. He proclaimed a fast and called on men to pray to God for forgiveness.
1. We do not need leaders that are in opposition to God.
2. We need leaders that listen to God’s call to repentance and lead us to align ourselves with His will.
3. These are the leaders we need in the church, in our families and in our government.
4. Such leaders lead us away from calamity rather than toward it.
D. God relented concerning the calamity He had planned for Nineveh. In other words He forgave them. “But they deserved to die!” and this may very well have been Jonah’s argument.
IV. Jonah said, “I told you so!”A. Jonah was angry because God was not going to condemn them.
B. He prayed to God. “Was this not what I said while I was in my own country? This is why I fled to Tarshish. I knew you were a gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger and abundant in lovingkindness and one who relents concerning calamity. Therefore take my life, for death is better to me than life.”
C. Jonah knew all along that he was in opposition to the will of God. He knew God’s graciousness and opposed taking it to the Ninevites.
V. There are many lessons that can be learned from this account.A. God is concerned about other people and not just “us.”
1. We may only be concerned about ourselves and our reception of God’s grace, but God is concerned about others.
a. The Ninevites were idolaters. They were wicked and ruthless and brutal. They were not numbered among God’s chosen people Israel.
b. The message of Scripture is for Jews, Gentiles, male, female, bondmen and free men, the poor and the wealthy, Democrats and Republicans, U.S. citizens and illegal immigrants, Jews, Arabs, Palestinians, U.S. Marines and the Taliban.
2. In His presence there is peace. Storms are quieted when we align ourselves with His purposes.
B. When you withhold forgiveness you run counter to the purpose of God.
1. Are you withholding forgiveness from your spouse? Your children? Your parents? A family member? Or some other?
2. The demand is great! God’s grace is equal to the condemnation they deserve.
C. No matter how wicked you are God’s grace is great enough for your sin.
1. Do not think that your sin is too great for God to forgive.
2. He has paid the penalty for it Himself. He provided the cross!
3. All the sins, brutality and murder perpetuated by the Assyrians is paid for in the cross. All your sins are paid for there too.
Conclusion:
1. Will you accept the graciousness of God? 2. Then repent of your wickedness and turn from your violence, as did the people of Nineveh. 3. Neither the people of Nineveh nor Jonah deserved God’s graciousness. You don’t either! But herein is the beauty of it. God gives life to those deserving death.
