Jonah: God Does As He Pleases!

Jonah Introduction

There are a few books that are very difficult to place chronologically, such as Joel and Obadiah, but for the most part we have a general idea when these prophets lived and prophesied.

We learn in that Jonah was a prophet of God to Israel around the time of the reign of Jeroboam II, the son of Joash. We actually have a prophecy of Jonah that he spoke to Israel recorded in this passage about the territory of Israel being expanded.

The reign of Jeroboam II was a time of peace and prosperity for the people of Israel. Things had been rough prior to this for Israel, but things turned around during Jeroboam’s reign

Of course, we know that the peace and prosperity would not last long. Little by little, king by king, Israel becomes more and more corrupt until God sends Assyria to take them into captivity. Recalling this fact about who would take Israel into captivity whenever we consider the first three verses of - who Jonah is called to go and prophesy to…

Jonah Flees!

"Now the word of the LORD came to Jonah the son of Amittai, saying, "Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and call out against it, for their evil has come up before me." But Jonah rose 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, away from the presence of the LORD." ()

Jonah is called to be one of God's first foreign missionaries. He is called to preach to the great city of Nineveh, the capital city of the Assyrian Empire - an enemy to God’s people- to gentiles…

Jonah’s response is interesting… We have instances where prophets question their ability to fulfill God’s mission. We have prophets who say they can’t do it… But Jonah takes it to another level! He doesn’t say a word. He runs away from where God called him to go and preach.

Why would Jonah do such a thing? Why would he, as a servant of God (), reject God’s call and run away from his duty? We are not told the exact reason here, but Jonah does tell the Lord EXACTLY why later on in the book. He tells the Lord in 4:2

Jonah’s reasons for fleeing:

"And he prayed to the LORD and said, "O LORD, is not this what I said when I was yet in my country? That is why I made haste to flee to Tarshish; for I knew that you are a gracious God and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love, and relenting from disaster.”

Why does he flee and get on the boat to go to Tarshish? Because he does NOT want to see the Lord be merciful to those he is calling him to prophesy to! He knows that there is a chance that if he goes, they may repent. And if they repent, Jonah knows the LORD well enough to know that the LORD will keep His word in showing mercy to this Assyrian city. He doesn’t want to see this happen! So he flees! He gets onto a boat heading as far away from Nineveh he can get!

God’s response

But God isn’t going to just let Jonah run away from his duties. Jonah couldn't get away from the Lord. His disobedience would not only affect him, but also those who were on the boat with him. God sends a great wind onto the sea that caused a great storm that was causing the boat to be in danger of breaking up.

We see the crew’s response in v5. They are afraid for their lives… and they start praying. Maybe one of their gods will spare them.

They then deal with what God had thrown at the sea with a counter-throw of their own. They throw the ship’s cargo into sea to try to lighten the boat.

The captain then goes into the lowest parts of the ship where Jonah is and he questions Jonah. ‘WHY AREN’T YOU PRAYING?’ The religious ones up to this point have been the pagan sailors, and the captain is calling Jonah to start praying. We’re not told if Jonah prays though…

In v7, The sailors then decide to cast lots to see whose fault this storm was, the lot fell to

He was stormed with barrage of questions 1:8… They questioned Jonah once again, asking him whose fault this was, what his occupation was, and where he was from.

Jonah’s response (v9) He tells them that he is a Hebrew and that he feared the Lord, the God of heaven, which we could bring to question at this moment. Really? Sure isn’t showing up to this point. The one who is called the servant of the Lord in 2 Kings is doing all but serving the Lord here!

They ask Jonah what to do so their lives could be spared… Jonah tells the sailors to throw him overboard! (1:12)

They do not listen. They try to row ashore. They don’t want to throw God’s prophet overboard to his death. But they could not row back to shore.

So the sailors pray to the LORD! They are more prayerful than Jonah! They show faith in the Lord’s providence. They they finally throw Jonah overboard 1:15

The shipmen throw Jonah into the sea, and the Lord answered their prayers by quieting the raging sea. And they worship God

The Great Fish

We are told at the end of ch1 that “The Lord prepared a great fish”. This great fish swallows Jonah, and then in ch2, we see a prayer of praise and possibly repentance while he is in the belly of the great fish.

In this prayer, he recounts the events that happened after he was thrown overboard. He sunk and sunk. It looked like it was going to be a certain death for Jonah for his rebellion to God. I love the imagery. In verse 5, he talks about the seaweed wrapping around him, and then in v6 he gives us a picture of being swallowed up by the mountains under the sea where he was going to be imprisoned. Whenever he was beginning to feel like he was without hope, he remembered the LORD. He prayed to God and was delivered. The great fish that God had prepared for this moment in time came and swallowed Jonah, rescuing him from certain death.

He closes his prayer in ch2 vowing to sacrifice to the Lord and doing what he had vowed to the Lord to do - hopefully talking about his desire to obey the Lord - to go wherever the Lord calls him to prophesy.

In response to Jonah’s prayer, God instructs the great fish to vomit Jonah onto the dry ground

A Second Chance for Jonah! CH3

The word came to Jonah once again. Jonah and the Lord are back to square 1. The Lord commands Jonah to go to Nineveh once again to prophesy whatever the Lord commanded him to prophesy.

This time Jonah obeys. He did according to what the Lord commanded. He enters this city and begins proclaiming the message: "Yet 40 days and Nineveh will be overthrown.” Jonah didn't have to go any farther. The people believed the message and believed in God already! They all put on sackcloth, from the least to the greatest of them.

The word reached the king of Nineveh. He put on sackcloth and sat on ashes, and he issued a proclamation, calling for all, man and beast alike, to wear sackcloth and to fast. The King also commanded all men to pray to the Lord and to repent from their sin, hoping the Lord would be merciful and not fulfill the word that they had heard through Jonah.

God saw their repentance and decided not to destroy Nineveh as he said that he would.

Jonah’s trip to Nineveh is a success! Unlike Israel and Judah later on, this pagan city repents… How do you think Jonah feels about this successful mission trip?

Jonah is Angry! (CH4)

You would have expected Jonah to be thrilled that his preaching to these people was successful, but we are told the opposite. He was greatly displeased that the people repented. He still would have preferred to see the Ninevites destroyed than to see them repent!

There are a couple glaring inconsistencies here with Jonah:

Jonah was thrilled that he had received mercy from God, but he was angry that the Lord had been merciful to these pagans. The compassion of the Lord was a great character trait to Jonah when he was drowning in the sea for his disobedience, but now that God was being compassionate to the Ninevites, he no longer seems to think that God's compassion is a good character trait to have towards the rebellious.

Jonah was so angry over the compassion God showed to Nineveh, that he would rather be dead than continue to see it! He desired to be saved from drowning earlier, and now he wants to die…

God questions Jonah as to whether he had a good reason to be angry

We are not given an answer by Jonah in the text, but God decides to give him a lesson through a plant and a worm that he had prepared for this time.

Jonah was uncomfortable because of the sun, so the Lord appoints this plant to give Jonah shelter from the sun and to deliver him from his discomfort.

As expected, Jonah was extremely happy about the plant, just as he was the great fish that the Lord appointed to deliver him.

The next day, God appointed a worm to attack the plant and to cause it to wither. It did so. When the sun had come up, God appointed a scorching east wind, and the sun beat down on Jonah's head. He became faint and begged once again that he could die. He considered death better than life. He seemed to be angry once again with the Lord

The LORD shows Jonah his great inconsistency:

God did to the plant what Jonah wanted him to do to Nineveh, and he is angry. He got upset about the plant being destroyed, but would have been happy for the people of Nineveh to be destroyed. It is as though he values a plant more than he does men and women who are made in the image of God

APPLICATIONS

1. Are there people that we are unwilling to share God’s message with? People we don’t like? People we are uncomfortable being around? People we believe won’t listen?

Are there other duties the Lord has given us that we are “running away” from? Duties towards our brethren? Duties in our homes?.

2. Our sin affects others!

3. Contrast between Jonah and the sailors: Are there nonChristians who are more “spiritual/religious” than us? The sailors were more prayerful and had a greater concern for the lives of others. Are we less devoted to prayer, evangelism, teaching our children, etc?

4. Main lesson in the book: God does as He pleases (1:14). What we see in this book is that the main character is God. This is important for us to see about every book, including this one.

The book of Jonah, it’s not about Jonah and the great fish. It is primarily about God! Almost everything obeys God in this book: the wind, the fish, the sailors, the plant, the Ninevites, the worm. We see that God is in control; God is sovereign. There really is only one exception: Jonah.

But the irony about this is that even though Jonah was rebellious, God still get’s done what he desires. And it could be argued that God uses Jonah’s rebellion to further glorify himself.

The pagan sailors end up coming to fear the Lord, and the event with the great fish led possibly to an even greater level of repentance in Nineveh. Jesus says in that Jonah’s time in the fish became a sign to the Ninevites. This may show that Nineveh heard about the events, and once Jonah came to the city, the story was validated and they were eager to listen to his message. This man was “dead for three days, and then miraculously is given life… He is given a second chance, and the people saw that their repentance perhaps could give them a second chance also. The Lord does as He pleases. That is the main lesson for us in this book

We serve the God who is over all, and we need to trust him no matter what may come.