Jonah 3 Reluctant Prophet
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Then the word of the Lord came to Jonah the second time, saying, “Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and call out against 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, three days’ journey in breadth. Jonah began to go into the city, going a day’s journey. And he called out, “Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown!” And the people of Nineveh believed God. They called for a fast and put on sackcloth, from the greatest of them to the least of them.
Then the word of the Lord came to Jonah the second time, saying, “Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and call out against 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, three days’ journey in breadth. Jonah began to go into the city, going a day’s journey. And he called out, “Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown!” And the people of Nineveh believed God. They called for a fast and put on sackcloth, from the greatest of them to the least of them.
The word reached the king of Nineveh, and he arose from his throne, removed his robe, covered himself with sackcloth, and sat in ashes. And he issued a proclamation and published through Nineveh, “By the decree of the king and his nobles: Let neither man nor beast, herd nor flock, taste anything. Let them not feed or drink water, but let man and beast be covered with sackcloth, and let them call out mightily to God. Let everyone turn from his evil way and from the violence that is in his hands. Who knows? God may turn and relent and turn from his fierce anger, so that we may not perish.”
When God saw what they did, how they turned from their evil way, God relented of the disaster that he had said he would do to them, and he did not do it.
Let’s talk about this God of love, this God of forgiveness.
Let’s talk about this God of love, this God of forgiveness.
If you remember back in chapter 1 Jonah was given a direct order by God.
“Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and call out against it, for their evil has come up before me.”
Now the word of the Lord came to Jonah the son of Amittai, saying,
That was the charge. Go to Ninevah and preach to them. Call them out. What did Jonah do? He ran away in the opposite direction from where God told him, not just wanted him to go, but Jonah disobeyed a direct order from God. He said, “NO!”.
When I hear Jonah’s willful disobedience it reminds me of learning how to be parents. When Rachel and I were first parents, and we read material and we listened to others about the subject of discipline for the kids . How do we do it? Why do we do it? And the method can be different for different kids regarding spanking and time outs. I think that as long as the discipline does what it was intended to do then whatever works is fine.
But when to discipline is the question. We believed that whenever the child was being willfully disobedient then there is no question that the child will be disciplined. If I said pick that up and they said no. If I said stop doing that and they said no whether their actions or their words they knew that they would receive a discipline.
And it wasn’t 1, 2, 3. All you are doing when you are counting down for the kids to stop is teaching them that they have this much time before you are going to do anything.
No, there is always a discipline attached to willful disobedience.
There is always a consequence for willful disobedience to God. It might not happen immediately, but it will happen.
For Jonah, it was the same thing. He is not happy that God wants him to do this, runs off in the other direction and God lovingly, yes lovingly causes a storm to come which will literally destroy the ship he is on unless he is literally sacrificed. Lovingly.
Then God sends the fish to swallow Jonah to … rescue… him from himself really; where Jonah finally comes to his senses and submits his will over to God.
When Jonah does that, the fish spits him out, vomits him, if you will, out onto the shore.
Then the word of the Lord came to Jonah the second time, saying, “Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and call out against 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, three days’ journey in breadth. Jonah began to go into the city, going a day’s journey. And he called out, “Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown!”
Then the word of the Lord came to Jonah the second time, saying, “Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and call out against 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, three days’ journey in breadth. Jonah began to go into the city, going a day’s journey. And he called out, “Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown!” And the people of Nineveh believed God. They called for a fast and put on sackcloth, from the greatest of them to the least of them.
Then the word of the Lord came to Jonah the second time, saying, “Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and call out against 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, three days’ journey in breadth.
1
Okay Jonah, “yes Lord”. Arise, go to Nineveh and preach to it. Okay...
God’s Plans Don’t Change
I absolutely love this because we see two things going on here.
1. God’s plans don’t change. God’s plans don’t change. God is patient isn’t He?
Jonah runs away. Okay. Let me get your attention Jonah. God’s plans don’t change. God’s Plans Don’t Change.
Understand that this morning because if we understood that then maybe we would submit a little easier. If we understood that when God has a plan that he is going to carry it out. And look, he will carry it out with you or without you. In his love, and in his mercy, through His Grace he is patient isn’t He?
This is an aspect of God that we don’t always understand. When I say that God’s plans never change that is immediately going to make you think about the times that you think His plans DO change.
And you may say, “Mark, if God’s plans don’t change then why pray? Then why obey? Is God really manipulating everything in the universe for His pleasure and are we just pawns in this game that He has going on? No! Absolutely not.
God has a will, you know that. But there are different pieces to His will. Different factions to it.
God’s sovereign will is just that. There is no changing it. God said, “Let there be light and it was so”.
But there is God’s permissive will which means that God allows the actions of people to accomplish His plans. That is why we have a choice to make a good decision, we have a choice to make a bad decision. There are consequences for our decisions to us, but God’s plan will ultimately prevail.
A great example is Joseph. It was always God’s plan that Joseph would be in Egypt to save the Jewish people from the famine and to multiply and become a great people.
And there was a free choice made by the brothers of Joseph, a sinful choice which placed him there in the first place. But ultimately, God’s plan happens. Do we want to be part of that or not?
So what IS God’s ultimate plan in the story about Jonah? It has to do with the command that God gave Jonah in the first place. The book of Jonah isn’t just about Jonah the same way your life isn’t just about you. We think it does, we act like it does , we make decisions like it does but our lives are not supposed to be about us.
“Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and call out against it, for their evil has come up before me.”
That’s God’s plan
“Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and call out against it the message that I tell you.”
Jona 3
God’s plan is to get these people to turn their lives over to God. That’s God’s plan/. It’s not about Jonah or about a fish, it’s about God wanting to save a group of people. See what happens when Jonah makes it about himself.
Don’t make your life about yourself. It’s not. Your life, the life of a Christian is about what we can do for God. Seeing God’s plan for you and sticking with it because God’s plan doesn’t change.
It is really important for us as Christians to understand that concept. Your life will be so much easier when you get that. God has a plan, and I want to be a part of that. Go God’s Plans don’t change, we can take comfort in that.
There is another amazing thing that I take comfort in here in chapter 3.
Jonah is still God’s Guy (second chances) Let’s try this again. Jonah is still the guy.
re is another amazing thing that I take comfort in. That Jonah is still God’s Guy (second chances) Let’s try this again, Jonah. Jonah, you are still my guy. Even though you totally blew it. Even though you willfully, full knowingly, unapologetically disobeyed me I want you to know that Jonah, you’re is still my guy.t
That Jonah is still God’s Guy (second chances) Let’s try this again, Jonah. Jonah, you are still my guy. Even though you totally blew it. Even though you willfully, fully, knowingly, unapologetically, totally and completely disobeyed me I want you to know that Jonah, you’re is still my guy.
Isn’t that incredible? The way that Jonah treated God and God’s plan and God is still giving Jonah the opportunity to be used as God’s instrument.
It means that it’s never too late to do God’s will. Never too late. God forgives. Look, Jonah was a prophet. That was a big deal. He got to hear from God. Now, that was an incredible privilege that not many people at all shared.
He got to hear from God! He spoke to God. God spoke to him. This was ridiculously rare. We have the HS in us so we actually have something more than he did but at the time he was incredibly blessed to be able to talk with God.
God gave Jonah something to do and he blew it. He threw it all away.
We would disqualify Jonah wouldn’t we? But that isn’t what God does. God says, “Jonah, you are still my guy here”, I forgive you and want you to do that thing I told you to do earlier.
It’s never too late to do God’s will. Never too late. God still believes in you.
And I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ.
Philippians
Don’t ever think that God has given up on you, He hasn’t. Don’t ever think that God has thrown you off to the side, He hasn’t. That verse says that He began something in you and that He will see through. He will see it through.
So there is no excuse that God doesn’t want to use you, or that God is done with you, or that you are too far away from God. You are not.
Jonah ran away from God by getting on that boat in the opposite direction God told him to go. Jonah was even willing to be sacrificed rather than go and speak to the evil Ninevites.
But God rescues him, and as Jonah stands there with the water dripping off of him, and the slime and the half digested gunk stuck to him, the verse says that God still wants HIM, HIM to go to Nineveh to do His will.
hhDo you think
Do you think that God is forgiving?
as far as the east is from the west,
so far does he remove our transgressions from us.
That is how complete the payment of sin is. When we confess our sin and ask forgiveness those sins are driven away as far away as the east is from the west.
So if you hang on to guilt, if you hang onto shame, you do it on your own because God paid for those sins. God doesn’t want you to hang on to those things. We think that hanging onto and feeling guilty about stuff will make God understand how serious you are, no. God has removed them, why would you bring it back up?
Jonah is still God’s guy. You know that you are God’s guy, or God’s gal here today?
Yes, you have wandered, maybe even have run away. But God wants to get your attention and He still wants to use you.
What does that feel like to you this morning? What does it feel like to know that God still believes in you? That should bring a smile to your face today. God believes in you. He doesn’t cast you aside, he doesn’t give up on you. He really truly wants to use you.
That is how God felt about Jonah
So Jonah arose and went to Nineveh, according to the word of the Lord. Now Nineveh was an exceedingly great city, three days’ journey in breadth. Jonah began to go into the city, going a day’s journey. And he called out, “Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown!” And the people of Nineveh believed God. They called for a fast and put on sackcloth, from the greatest of them to the least of them.
The word reached the king of Nineveh, and he arose from his throne, removed his robe, covered himself with sackcloth, and sat in ashes. And he issued a proclamation and published through Nineveh, “By the decree of the king and his nobles: Let neither man nor beast, herd nor flock, taste anything. Let them not feed or drink water, but let man and beast be covered with sackcloth, and let them call out mightily to God. Let everyone turn from his evil way and from the violence that is in his hands. Who knows? God may turn and relent and turn from his fierce anger, so that we may not perish.”
When God saw what they did, how they turned from their evil way, God relented of the disaster that he had said he would do to them, and he did not do it.
Jonah 3:3
Jonah gets up and walks to Nineveh. Probably took him a month to get there. But he is being obedient, even if he is angry about it.
Jonah still isn’t happy about going to Nineveh and preaching God’s message to them. Even though God graces him with his life, Jonah still isn’t pleased with it.
Thank God that we don’t have to always feel good about being obedient.
Sometimes being obedient is having to do something God wants us to do in spite of our feelings.
Jonah is walking to Nineveh, do you think he is repeating that phrase over and over as he goes? Jonah goes (begrudgingly) Wont ever have worse experience than that.And we are told as we read that when Jonah gets there he starts saying one phrase over and over.
Jonah began to go into the city, going a day’s journey. And he called out, “Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown!”
Listen to that. This is Jonah’s great prophecy, this is the message that God has for Jonah to give to the Ninevites. Forty days and Nineveh will be overthrown.
We are told next that people of the city immediately repent. They immediately change their ways.
It says that they called for a fast, which means that they didn’t eat or drink, it says that they put on sack cloth and ashes. They did this to separate themselves from comfort to show their repentance to God.
Even the king does this and calls for the whole place to follow him … not to manipulate God, but to put themselves in a right relationship with God with the hopes that God MAY have mercy on them.
So much going on here. Remember how evil this place is. Remember all the atrocities they took part in. Think of the holocaust and that is the same level of evil here. They have surrendered themselves to God. Now THAT is incredible. It is incredible of itself.
But something that I find even more incredible is Jonah, who at this point is just kind of half hearted in his speech. 8 words. 8 words over and over. Forty Days and Nineveh shall be overthrown.
And the entire place repents and believes in God.
This is probably the biggest, largest revival in history. An entire city! Everybody listens and everybody believes in the message and all Jonah does i say 8 words.
Even though Jonah has the worst attitude as a prophet there is the Greatest revival in history. Obedient but missing out.
Greatest revival in history despite Jonah’s attitude. Obedient but missing out.
God forgives,
God forgives,
Greatest revival in history despite Jonah’s attitude. Obedient but missing out.
Jonah does not care about these people, he still can’t stand them, but he is obedient to God and they, in turn change their hearts.
This is how powerful God is, God saves these people even though the person delivering the message is barely half hearted. God uses Jonah in spite of himself.
3 God works in spite of our shortcomings.
I have to say that this is pretty exciting, it’s also pretty comforting and it’s empowering.
God wants to use you and God wants to use me to bring people into a knowledge of Him.
The verse we talk about very often is the great commission found in
Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,
And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.
You start making disciples by telling people about Jesus.
If a whole city could be saved by God through the half-hearted obedience of Jonah, think about what could happen through people like you to people that you actually like?
This story reminds me that we don’t save people, God does. We aren’t tricking anyone into heaven, we aren’t debating anyone into heaven, we aren’t convincing anyone into heaven. God brings people into heaven but he wants to use people like you to tell others about Him.
You could start with a verse.
“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.
That starts a conversation. That may be exactly what someone was wanting to hear.
Let’s recap her for a second.
If you are like Jonah, if you have run away from God, maybe God brought some kind of storm into your life and you have hit rock bottom. And if you have come out on the other side of that God still wants to use you.
Remember, God’s plans don’t change.
As a matter of fact, God still believes in you. You are still His guy, or His gal. The job He had for you he still has for you.
If God can use a guy like Jonah just through sheer obedience don’t you think He use you?
All Jonah had to do was be obedient and the eternities of so many people changed.
God’s grace in an incredible gift that is available to you and to me. It is there partly, to bring others into the kingdom of God.
Remember that this life-time we experience now is the only chance we get to bring saving knowledge of Jesus to people. We don’t get to do that in heaven, only here on earth and in this life.
Is there anyone that you have been hating that God wants you to love into the kingdom?