Jonah Extra Lecture notes

in vs 3- Jonah accepts God’s discipline as he recognizes that God is the one who threw Him overboard…

In other words, in vs 3 Jonah essentially recognizes that he is being disciplined by God and that he deserved it.

vs 4-7 Jonah trusts in God’s promises:

at the end of verse 4 “yet, I will look again toward your Holy Temple.”

This is a significant statement...

in 1 Kings 8, Solomon dedicates the temple to the Lord.

in his dedication, he basically says to God: if people stray from you in sin- if they turn back to the temple and cry for you- please hear them and rescue them.

Jonah knew his scripture- He acknowledges that God is a covenant keeping God- God said if anyone turns back from his sins, well then God would hear them…

Here he acts on his belief about God being who he said he was by confidently proclaiming that He would be saved BECAUSE he was turning away from his sin and turning toward God- or towards his temple

When he says “I remembered…he is really saying “I acted on the basis of God’s commitment”.

his passage raises the issue of whether or not we can be so depraved, so rebellious, and so far from God that He cannot save us. Is there anyone too sinful for God? How deep does God’s mercy go? God’s mercy will go down to the sandbars in the ocean for a rebellious prophet who deserved to die.

is there a storm you are evading? sleeping through like Jonah? You dont want to deal with it- so- you aren’t…is God asking you to step into the storm- is he trying to get your attention in the storm- WAKE UP

Exalting Jesus in Jonah, Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk Thankfulness Helps Us Proclaim the Message of Salvation (Jonah 2:9b)

Jonah is going all the way down to the bottom of the sea, and as he goes down he cries out to the Lord from the grave. Three days later, with thanksgiving, Jonah is brought up out of the water. Christ goes to the grave, or as the old catechism says, “He descended into hell.” He did not really physically descend into hell, but the catechisms are trying to say that He took all the wrath of God for us. After three days in the grave, with voices of thanksgiving, God raised Christ from the dead because the grave could not hold Him down. On this basis, the Lord is able to offer mercy to all of us. God’s mercy is so great that He would hurl Christ into the depths of Sheol as One forsaken so that we who are rightly forsaken in our rebellion can be saved.

But the Ninevites respond to this simplistic message of judgment with repentance. Human words do not limit the spiritual awakenings God mercifully supplies. Human words can encourage and do harm but God’s word can convict and transform. Because the power of God’s words have unfathomable reach and transformative power, how discerning are we to what God is calling us to say, not what we feel needs to be said in a moment, to those around us regarding the gospel message? How could God use you to speak words of undeserved mercy to someone around you who seems completely against God or who is completely different from you?

Are there certain sins you elevate- defining others by their sin instead of as God’s children in need of mercy and salvation.

Exalting Jesus in Jonah, Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk Childhood Disdain for Preaching Doom

If we never tell the people we know that bad side of the good news, they most likely will never have an opportunity to receive the mercy of God. There is no salvation without hearing the bad news. That’s the predicament in which we find Jonah: Jonah has to be the one to take Nineveh the bad news so that they can have a chance to hear some really good news. However, it is in receiving this bad news that the Ninevites will become objects of the glorious mercy of God.

Exalting Jesus in Jonah, Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk We Must Preach the Message of Doom in Obedience to the Command to Preach the Gospel of God (Jonah 3:1–2)

” Akin to an awakened Ebenezer Scrooge, Jonah is ready to do what is right. He does not want his life turned upside down again.

Exalting Jesus in Jonah, Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk Jonah Had Problems with the Character of God

Jonah takes issue with God being merciful—One who cares for people tenderly and compassionately, as a mother would care for a child (the Hebrew concept behind the words). That God would be One who would look down at evil and violent people—at His enemies, no less!—and lean over them the way a good mother leans over a baby’s crib, tenderly holding and caressing that baby, is an issue for Jonah. On God’s mercy, John Feinberg notes:

About a year ago, my friends Father passed away. So, my friends and I made our plans to go to Cleveland...

About a week before I found out that my cousin had passed away from an overdose.

and his Father, my uncle, was in a hospital in Cleveland...

now…my Uncle had caused deep pain to my family for years…so much so that he was alone in that hospital…no one had visited…and to be honest, the reason for him being alone was his own doing. The continuous pain and abuse this man had caused forced people to set up boundaries- to keep their distance.

But…he was sick..he was frail…his son had just died…and here I was, headed to Cleveland- and I was staying roughly 15 minutes from where he was.

I knew that the Lord was asking me to go and see him.

I will be honest my initial reaction was a firm…absolutely not.

but…for the next several days before we went- it was literally ALL I could think about…and I knew it was the voice of the Holy Spirit and that not going- would be disobedient.

So the morning of…as I walked out the door- I looked at my friends and said, once again…I don’t want to do this.

and off I went.

I dont have time to go into the details of what happened on my visit.

But I can tell you that he was there…the Lord gave me an opportunity to share the gospel with this man.

He filled my heart with compassion for Him…he helped me see him, like he did.

Before I left, for the first time, he said that he hadn’t been kind, that he was the reason no one was there.

It was the first time he had ever acknowledged to anyone that he was the one with a sin problem, not everyone else.

For years he walked around as a victim as he continuously wounded everyone around him, including those who desperately tried to help him.

At that point I knew that he was capable of receiving Jesus because he recognized that he was a sinner in need of a savior.

For the first time, I had hope for my Uncle.

And then with a heart genuinely full of compassion and love- I leaned forward and gave him a hug.

Never in my wildest dreams did I think that myself or anyone else would hug this man.

The Lord allowed me to love my Uncle like He did, to see him like He did.

As I got back in my car…I wept...

My Aunt later sent me this message: For outsiders, this is an amazing testimony and witness of God's wondrous ways. But for us, family, there are so many emotions we bring into it. So much pain and anguish that only Christ can be our balm.

I did not see my Uncle again…I have no idea what happened in his heart that day…only God does but...

In June I received a phone call that my Uncle was about to die…and I’m told that some of his last words were… “I’m ready to go and be with Jesus.”

In 1955, Jim Elliot and 4 other missionaries felt called to preach the gospel to a tribe who no outsider had encountered and survived.

Upon making contact. Jim and the 4 missionaries with him were speared to death.

Jim’s wife, Elisabeth Elliot felt that God was asking her to continue in what the Lord had called her husband to..

Elisabeth and her 3 year old daughter went to live among the tribe for 2 years.

During that time she shared the gospel with them and saw many tribe members come to faith.

The power of the gospel and the realization of the mercy that she had received led her walk back into a people who had murdered her husband and share the mercy of God with them.

so....who is your Nineveh?

a grumpy or difficult work colleague

a manipulative family member

a corrupt politician

is there an entire people group who you look down upon..

maybe those with too much money…or those who have very little...

those with more education or less education than you

those with a different nationality or race

maybe someone who has hurt you so deeply that even just thinking about them is painful...

I want you to keep them in mind as we continue on...

One writer said it this way: Truth not lived is truth not believed.

We do this all the time!

I say I believe God is the ultimate healer and yet I get a cold and I grab the medicine without even bothering to ask God to take my cold away.

I say I believe he is in control of all circumstances- but yet- when my plans get blown- I get anxious or angry.

I say stuff doesnt matter- only God does- but when my stuff breaks or I can find what I want I get irritated- I snap.

As long as we live in this broken world, there are always going to be gaps in what we know, what we say, and how we live. None of us will ever walk perfectly without gaps between our heart and our head- because there is always something that we don’t understand, know, or believe perfectly about God.

I don’t know the circumstances in your life- and even if I did- there would be no way for me to know what God is doing…but…

Is there possibly a storm in your life that God has sent to get your attention? To bring you back into relationship with Him?