Jonah

Well, have I got a whale of a tale for you today. Some of you might even say that the story we are going to talk about today sounds a bit fishy. I promise those are the only ones you will hear today. Today we are going to be looking at the Book of Jonah. Jonah is one of the last 12 books of the Old Testament known as the minor prophets although he is most likely the best well known of the Minor Prophets. If you want to turn there in your Bible I will give you some background information on Jonah as I like to do before I get into the story. Now Jonah is unique among the Minor Prophets for several reasons one of which is that he is actually mentioned outside of the book that bears his name. He is mentioned in 2 Kings 14:25 you don’t have to turn there but it says, “He (King Jeroboam II) restored the territory of Israel from the entrance of Hamath to the Sea of the Arabah, according to the word of the Lord God of Israel, which He had spoken through His servant Jonah the son of Amittai, the prophet who was from Gath Hepher.” Gath Hepher the city where Jonah was from was a city in the Northern Kingdom of Israel in the territory of the tribe of Zebulun. Given that King Jeroboam II reigned from 793 - 753 B.C. this gives us a pretty good idea of when Jonah ministered to the people of Israel. The Book of Jonah is also unique in that is a narrative book rather a book of prophesy which is what the other minor prophets are about. Rather than it being a book that contains the prophecies of a prophet it is a story about a prophet. So with that in mind let’s dive into the story and were are going to start by reading the first chapter of Jonah.

Now the word of the Lord came to Jonah the son of Amittai, saying, “Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and cry out against it; for their wickedness has come up before Me.” But Jonah arose to flee to Tarshish from the presence of the Lord. He went down to Joppa, and found a ship going to Tarshish; so he paid the fare, and went down into it, to go with them to Tarshish from the presence of the Lord. But the Lord sent out a great wind on the sea, and there was a mighty tempest on the sea, so that the ship was about to be broken up. Then the mariners were afraid; and every man cried out to his god, and threw the cargo that was in the ship into the sea, to lighten the load. But Jonah had gone down into the lowest parts of the ship, had lain down, and was fast asleep. So the captain came to him, and said to him, “What do you mean, sleeper? Arise, call on your God; perhaps your God will consider us, so that we may not perish.” And they said to one another, “Come, let us cast lots, that we may know for whose cause this trouble has come upon us.” So they cast lots, and the lot fell on Jonah. Then they said to him, “Please tell us! For whose cause is this trouble upon us? What is your occupation? And where do you come from? What is your country? And of what people are you?” So he said to them, “I am a Hebrew; and I fear the Lord, the God of heaven, who made the sea and the dry land.” Then the men were exceedingly afraid, and said to him, “Why have you done this?” For the men knew that he fled from the presence of the Lord, because he had told them. Then they said to him, “What shall we do to you that the sea may be calm for us?”—for the sea was growing more tempestuous. And he said to them, “Pick me up and throw me into the sea; then the sea will become calm for you. For I know that this great tempest is because of me.” Nevertheless the men rowed hard to return to land, but they could not, for the sea continued to grow more tempestuous against them. Therefore they cried out to the Lord and said, “We pray, O Lord, please do not let us perish for this man’s life, and do not charge us with innocent blood; for You, O Lord, have done as it pleased You.” So they picked up Jonah and threw him into the sea, and the sea ceased from its raging. Then the men feared the Lord exceedingly, and offered a sacrifice to the Lord and took vows. Now the Lord had prepared a great fish to swallow Jonah. And Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights.

On June 12, 2021 a Massachusetts lobster diver named Michael Packard had the experience of a lifetime. He was about 45 feet under water when what he later describes a truck hitting him and then everything just went dark. What Michael quickly figured was that he was in the mouth of a humpback whale that was trying to swallow him. He spent about 30 seconds inside the mouth of that Humpback Whale before the Humpback figured out that something was wrong and that it didn’t like the taste of humans and spit Michael out. Michael survived with some soft tissue damage to his legs and a dislocated knee. In 2019, wildlife photographer Rainer Schimpf also got scooped up by whale white capturing pictures in the ocean. He too also survived. Scientist assure us that these incidents are incredible rare and complete accidents or so the whales would have you believe. In the story of Jonah we someone else who didn’t just ended up in the mouth of a whale, but was also swallowed by now the Bible does not say whale just a great fish. Some people say this story is merely fictional similar to Moby Dick while other will argue that is only an allegorical tale not to be taken literally. I will be taking the position that the story of Jonah is telling a real historical event. I am taking that position for two main reasons. Number 1 I decided a long time ago that Genesis 1:1 was telling the truth about the creation of the world and who the creator was. If you can accept Genesis 1:1 was the truth than you can accept everything else in the Bible, but if you can’t then you will have difficulty believing everything else the Bible has to say. The second reason is that Jesus mentions the story of Jonah twice in the Gospel of Matthew and he referred to it as a Factual story. I will chose to believe what Jesus said over any so called scholar who disagrees with Him. The story of Jonah was a real event that happened and has been preserved for us today so that it can highlight the Mercy of God.

The Mercy of God is first shown to us when God tells Jonah to go and preach to the city of Nineveh. Now the city of Nineveh is in what we would call modern-day Iraq near the modern city of Mosul. Nineveh would eventually become the Capital City of the Assyrian Empire, but this most likely hasn’t happen yet, but it is still an Assyrian City. Now who were the Assyrians. The Assyrians were a group of brutal and barbaric people. That is not me taking a 21st century perspective on them, but even by the standards of their time they stood out for cruelty and brutality. The practiced mass deportations in which they would transport thousands of individuals out of their homeland to go live somewhere else and you can say that was them when they were in a merciful mood. They practiced flaying, impaling, decapitations, burning people alive, and many more practices that for all our sakes don’t need to be said out loud but I’m sure you get the picture. In Nahum 3:1 God’s says’s of Nineveh that it is a city of blood, full of lies, full of plunder, never without victims!

This is the group of people to whom God sends Jonah out to preach. God looked at the people of Nineveh and said they are worth saving. Point number one God’s mercy is undeserved. The Ninevites didn’t deserve to God’s mercy shown to them. We look at the them and see all that they did and we say God would be fully justified in bringing his judgement and his punishment down on them. What can be a hard pill for some of us to swallow is that we are no more deserving of God’s mercy than the Ninevites. You can say that well I haven’t done all the things the Ninevites did and that’s true and a good thing, but as James puts it “whoever keeps the whole law and yet stumbles at just one point is guilty of breaking it all.” The truth of the matter is that we all desperately need God’s mercy and are all undeserving of it. However, Jonah doesn’t think that the Ninevites are deserving of God’s Mercy so he decides to disobey God and not go to Nineveh. Now if Jonah had stopped to really think about his next course of action he probably would have realized how foolish it would be to try and run from God, but run he does and he runs to a boat and sets sail to Tarshish. Now Herodotus the 5th Century BC historian identifies Tarshish as Spain. Meaning Jonah was attempting to go as far in the opposite direction as he possible could.

God takes a look from heaven and see’s Jonah on a boat and sends a storm to try and get Jonah’s attention. The Pagan sailors recognize that something divine is happening and so they try to figure out whose fault it is and guess what it’s Jonah’s. The sailors ask Jonah what do we do? To which Jonah replies kill me. Which is a very strange answer. God is against human sacrifice and Jonah knows that, yet he stills answers that way. It’s like he is still trying to avoid going to Nineveh.

Did you notice something interesting that happened in Chapter 1. Or at least I found it interesting. It said that the men (meaning the sailors) rowed hard to return to land, but they could not. Why were they trying to return to land. To drop Jonah off so he could go to Nineveh, but God said no you are going to stay in that storm. This is just a thought but what if sometimes when we see someone in a storm and we with the best of intentions go out to try and help them through the storm when we need to let God deal with it. We make things worse because the reason they are in the storm is because it is only in the storm that God can get their attention. That’s just a some food for thought we are moving on Jonah eventually gets thrown overboard and he ended up being swallowed and in the belly of a fish for three days and nights.

This leads us to point number 2. God’s mercy is unexpected. God’s mercy can come in many different forms that can very unusual and strange. I have not been in Jonah’s situation, but I can say with confidence that it was not a pleasant situation. Being in the belly of a great fish was no doubt miserable. No food, no water remember it’s all salt water even if you wanted to drink the water that was there, no light, probably not a lot of space, and it probably smelled terribly, but in the belly of that great was God’s Mercy to Jonah. Sometimes we might miss God’s mercy on us because it comes in forms that we may not expect or even want it to. Jonah in midst of this unpleasantness comes to recognize God’s mercy in all this as we read in Chapter 2:7-9. “When my soul fainted with me, I remembered the Lord; And my prayer went up to You, Into Your holy temple. Those who regard worthless idols forsake their own mercy. But I will sacrifice to You will the Voice of Thanksgiving; I will pay what I have vowed. Salvation is of the Lord. God then tells the fish to vomit Jonah off to dry land which again could not have been a pleasant experience.

Chapter 3. “Now the word of the Lord came to Jonah the second time, saying, “Arise go to Nineveh, that great city, and preach to it the message that I tell you.” 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. And Jonah began to enter the city on the first day’s walk. Then he cried out and said, and this is the sum total of his message, it’s 8 words. My message has been over 8 words for those comparing sermon sizes. Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown! So the people of Nineveh believed God, proclaimed a fast, and put on sackcloth, from the greatest to the least of them. 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. 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. But let man and beast be covered with sackcloth, and cry mightily to God; yes, let everyone turn from his evil way and from the violence that is in his hands. Who can tell if God will turn and relent, and turn away from His fierce anger, so that we may not perish? 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.

Jonah’s message was only 8 words, much shorter than my according to record we have but it was enough. From those 8 words God was able to touch the hearts of the Ninevites and they repented. Point Number 3 God’s mercy is unbiased. These were terrible people, and yet at the first sign that they were willing to turn away from their way’s God was willing to show mercy and forgive. God does not discriminate. He loves all of his children, He died for each and everyone of them and He shows His mercy to all of them, and we also should do the same.

It’s at this point in the writing of the book of Jonah that Jonah put’s down his pen and says that’s a good story. Then he hears God say, “excuse me whose said you were done, keep going.” But Lord, this is a natural ending point of the story.” How about this Jonah, you keep telling the story and I will tell you when you can stop.

Jonah Chapter 4. “But it displeased Jonah exceedingly, and he became angry. So he prayed to the Lord, and said, “Ah, Lord, was not this what I said when I was still in my country? Therefore I fled previously to Tarshish; for I know that You are a gracious and merciful God, slow to anger and abundant in lovingkindness, One who relents from doing harm. He is quoting there from the book of Exodus where God describes, and he is using those attributes to throw it back God’s as if it were an insult. “Therefore now, O Lord, please take my life from me, for it is better for me to die than to live!” Did you see the tragic and horrifying thing Jonah just said? Remember, this is a prophet of God who just said that he would rather die than live in a world where God shows mercy to people, he doesn’t think deserve it. It’s easy for us to point and laugh at Jonah as he is whining and complaining, but how many of us do the exact same thing. We want the mercy of God to be poured out in our lives, but we don’t want it poured out on specific people we don’t like.

Jonah goes outside the city in hopes that the Ninevites will change their minds about repenting and God will then change His mind about saving them. So God in attempt to get through to Jonah sends a plant to give Him shade and then sends a worm to kill the plant. Then when Jonah complains about this God gives the final words of the book verse 10: But the Lord said, “You have had pity on the plant for which you have not labored, nor made it grow, which came up in a night and perished in a night. And should I not pity Nineveh, that great city, in which are more than one hundred and twenty thousand persons who cannot discern between their right hand and their left-and much livestock?”

Three times in this final chapter Jonah asks God for death and each time God says no because God shows mercy to all. To the Ninevites and to Jonah because God loves all and final point God’s mercy is unlimited. Psalm 118:29 “Oh Give thanks to the Lord, for He is good! For His mercy endures forever.” There is never a single moment in your life where if you come to God seeking His mercy with a penitent heart that you will be turned away. Hebrews 4:16 says, “Let us therefore come boldly to the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need.”

As you go out from this place I never want you to forget about the undeserved, unexpected, unbiased, and unlimited love and mercy that God has for you.