The Bible Binge: Playing "God" with the Gospel

No forgiveness for you

How was your week? Did anything big in your life happen this week? Tuesday night you either celebrated or grieved a loss. The aftermath has been fascinating. One thing that did not change: we still live in a society screaming at each other. But one of the running themes that is hard to miss coming from both sides is this: there is no forgiveness. Post after post, statement after statement, blue or red said something along the lines of: we’re not going to forget this. We’re not going to forget what was said. There is no forgiveness until the other side admits they were wrong.

And when forgiveness is withheld, the gospel goes missing. It’s as if there are those who are not yet ready to hear the gospel unless they first make some changes. That’s exactly where we are at in our Bible Binge journey today. We’ve arrived at the book of Jonah. And Jonah is one of the more fascinating stories in all of the Bible. It has all the earmarks of a great movie… including stuff that pushes the envelope of belief. And if we are not careful, we will get caught up in all sorts of morality lessons about the good and the bad in the character of Jonah… chief of which is this: better start obeying God. Don’t try to run from God or bad things will happen. You need a better attitude. Jonah may be one of the all-time guilt trip stories. I’ve heard all of these from this book. And none of it is the point of Jonah. In fact, it’s an abuse of Jonah.

By the time we get to this book of Jonah, Jonah has spent a lifetime preaching repentance to Israel. They have spent decades and centuries pursuing false gods. God's patience is nearing the end. God is preparing a people to destroy his people. To the north, the world's superpower, the big bad Assyrians, already had begun to exert their might and will on to the north.

Jonah Commissioned

Jonah preaching the Gospel for years. And Israel ignored him. That had to be frustrating for Jonah. Jonah is God’s mouthpiece for Israel. But he’s also, apparently God’s mouthpiece for the world. We come to the book of Jonah and we find that the prophet who had been raised to give Israel the gospel, now is being commissioned for another task:

Jonah 1:1–2 The word of the Lord came to Jonah son of Amittai: “Get up! Go to the great city of Nineveh and preach against it because their evil has come up before me.”

That shouldn’t be all that difficult. He’s been preaching repentance and judgment for years. It’s just a change of scenery. But it is difficult: God wants Jonah to go and preach salvation to those who are sharpening their blades and threatening Israel’s very existence. The gospel for those who are not like Israel. A different nation. A different people group.

Nineveh has no clue that it needs God love. Israel for centuries failed to proclaim the gospel message of a loving and merciful God to the nations. God's intent from the very beginning of time was to fill the earth with worshipping creatures who exalted him as the maker of the land and sea. And instead of the gospel, Israel wanted death for the enemy.

Jonah says “no”

But Jonah responds like northern Israel has been responding. Just like Israel ignores Jonah, Jonah wants no part of Nineveh. Here’s Jonah:

Jonah 1:3 Jonah got up to flee to Tarshish from the Lord’s presence. He went down to Joppa and found a ship going to Tarshish. He paid the fare and went down into it to go with them to Tarshish from the Lord’s presence.

Oh. OK, then. That’s unexpected. Jonah is told to “get up”. Jonah “got up” all right. Jonah got up to flee. Run away. Far, far away. But after Jonah “gets up”… notice the language… He went “down” to Joppa (which is modern day Tel-Aviv), and found a ship going to Tarshish, which is most likely a port city on the coast of Turkey. And once he finds the cruise that will take him 600 miles away, he goes down into the boat.. and from there we are also told this:

Jonah 1:5 Jonah had gone down to the lowest part of the ship and had stretched out and fallen into a deep sleep.

Everything is down. Down to Joppa. Down in the boat. Down in the lowest part of the boat. Down, down, down. That’s ominous. All this language is reinforcing what we have been told: God said go preach salvation to the enemy and everything about Jonah says “no way.” Down. Down. Down.

“The Presence”

But Jonah isn’t just running away from God. Again… words matter. 3 times in chapter 1 we are told this:

Jonah flees from the Lord’s presence.

The running theme through all of these big stories in the Old Testament is “God’s presence”. God is constantly present among his people. He is not distant. He shows up as the angel of the Lord to rescue his people. He shows up in the cloud pillar of fire that rests on the tabernacle… his visible presence always there with his people in that glory cloud. Jonah is running away from that. This is personal.

There’s way too much mocking of Jonah on this point. I don’t know how many times I’ve heard someone pose the rhetorical question: OK, boys and girls… is it possible to run away from God? Of course the answer is “no”. How could Jonah be so dumb? But that’s not the point here. Jonah is making a statement. Jonah is running away from God’s presence, the very glory cloud that you could see for miles. And he’s running away from Israel’s identity. Israel’s salvation. Israel’s hope. Just like Israel has been doing. Jonah preached for so long and it didn’t work. Maybe Israel has a point. And now, he’s been asked to preach the Gospel to Israel’s enemy. Nope, that’s the line. We’re done.

God personally shows up

But that presence isn’t done with Jonah. God’s still personally invested. Remember how I said this is the same presence that saved Israel through the Red Sea? That presence is at work in the sea.

Jonah 1:4 But the Lord threw a great wind onto the sea, and such a great storm arose on the sea that the ship threatened to break apart.

The LORD threw. Any time you see God acting in very lifelike ways, you can be sure that the second person of the godhead is again showing up in real time and space. The LORD threw. Jonah you may be done with me, but I’m not done with you. The storm shows up, the pagan sailors start praying to their false gods… which is what Israel has been doing for a long time now. They roll some dice to figure out who is to blame for the storm… a very pagan notion, but in a twist, the dice rolls on Jonah’s number and where is he? Oh yeah, Jonah is asleep in the bottom of the boat. The pagan sailors wake him up.

Jonah’s Confession

They blame Jonah and he says “Yep, it’s me.” And then he gives a confession:

Jonah 1:9 Jonah answered the sailors, “I’m a Hebrew. I worship the Lord, the God of the heavens, who made the sea and the dry land.”

What’s glaring is what isn’t here. There’s no repentance. Jonah would rather die than repent. What flows from his lips is both ironic and indictment. It is ironic because Jonah's flight from God's presence betrays what he confesses. I’m running away from the Hebrew God. And it is an indictment because his confession of the God who made land and sea has now marshaled the sea against him. But

Jonah's confession, as hypocritical as it may seem, has a gospelizing effect on the sailors. The impact of Jonah's confession has almost immediate impact and it is life-changing. They get it. They understand it. They believe. The sailors embrace the very presence of the LORD from which Jonah runs. In repentance and faith, the sailors believe and behave in a manner expected from Israel but found wanting.

Jonah “dies” to save

In spite of the sailor's repentance, Jonah is not joining them. He would rather die than repent and that's exactly what happens. Jonah is tossed overboard into death grip of the sea and its large fish. Jonah's "death" is the salvation of the sailors.

Jonah 1:15-16 The sailors picked up Jonah and threw him into the sea. The sea stopped its raging. The sailors offered a sacrifice to the Lord and made vows.

Jonah is thrown overboard… he effectively dies so that they may live… in fact, Jonah dies in order that they might sacrifice and make vows, the very temple activities from which has run and has cost him his life.

In being cast into the dark waters of the pit, Jonah undergoes the judgment of one who refuses to repent. On his way to the bottom of the Mediterranean, Jonah is swallowed by a divinely appointed fish and taken the rest of the way to the bottom with the finality of a last bell. The gig is up. Jonah will die the death of the rebellious, the death of a nation who flees from true worship and embraces the deadly gospel of self-realization.

Jonah plays God with the gospel

This seems to be a terrible end for Jonah. We’ll tell the rest of the story next week. But there’s more going on here than Jonah simply running away from God’s presence. That is bad. But the very first words of this chapter tell us something else about the real issue, and it is present in the pagan sailors professing faith in the loving God of Israel:

Jonah 1:2 God told Jonah, “Get up! Go to the great city of Nineveh and preach against it because their evil has come up before me.”

Go to the great city of Nineveh. God has a heart for the pagans. God has a heart for the whole world. His love and his grace aren’t just for Israel, but for the whole world, including Israel’s enemies. He wants Nineveh to experience the good news of the promise. And Jonah doesn’t. The very thing that Nineveh needs, Jonah withholds. Their eternity is on the line. Jonah decides they won’t get it. They don’t deserve it. He’s playing “God”, determining who gets the good news and who doesn’t.

The Creator of the sea dies for me

The big irony in this first chapter.. the one who created the sea is using the sea against Jonah… shows up a few hundred years later. We read it earlier. Jesus is in a boat with his disciples. Jesus is sleeping in the boat. There is a storm. Distressed sailors, the disciples, wake Jesus up, and Jesus calms the raging sea. All of the same story elements as the Jonah story. That’s not an accident. You see, the presence of God that Jonah was running from is the same presence that made the storm. And that presence that calmed the storm then is now in the boat on a lake Himself physically present calming the storm. The same presence. The One who will eventually die for those disciples. And for you and for me. He dies, and the sinner, you and me, goes free.

Who gets the gospel? From us? That Jesus who saves the disciples that day is the same Jesus our neighbors need. We live in a world that needs Jesus. That includes people who don’t look like us, don’t talk like us, don’t spend like us, don’t think like us, don’t vote like us? Jonah (and Israel) not only seemed to think the Gospel was theirs alone, they could dictate who got it and who didn't. Jesus’ heart is for you. Jesus’ heart is for them. Jesus’ heart is for the world. That’s the Good News we have for the people who aren’t like us. It is not ours to say who gets the Gospel and who doesn’t. After all, we don’t deserve the Gospel. We are sinners who like Jonah, too often would rather die than confess and repent of our sin, and yet Jesus loves us any way.

Let’s pray.

The Table

This Table is the Gospel. The Good News. This is the creator of the earth and the sea giving us Himself… in His body and in His blood for us. This is that presence. The presence that Jonah ran from, the very Emmanuel, God with us, Jesus, who is with us here… saving us, forgiving us, and giving us life. The Creator of the world is present for you, right here, right now. Receive him in faith.

Benediction

Numbers 6:24–26

May the Lord bless you and protect you;

may the Lord make his face shine on you and be gracious to you;

may the Lord look with favor on you and give you peace.