Jonah

New American Standard Bible: 1995 Update Chapter 1

The word of the LORD came to Jonah the son of Amittai saying,

2 “Arise, go to Nineveh the great city and cry against it, for their wickedness has come up before Me.”

3 But Jonah rose up to flee to Tarshish from the presence of the LORD. So he went down to Joppa, found a ship which was going to Tarshish, paid the fare and went down into it to go with them to Tarshish from the presence of the LORD.

We are all rebelsAdam and Eve were the first rebels and we have all followed suit after them. Adam and eve rebelled against the sovereign Creator God.

They rebelled against His goodness. They rebelled against His grace, and ever since the garden of Eden, every human being has come into the world as a rebel.

The Bible is clear. When Adam and Eve rebelled, we all rebelled.

Romans 5:12 Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned:

Yet the grand and gracious story line of the Bible is “God reaching down to be gracious to rebels. thats the whole story line fo redemptive history.The Bible is the story of God’s gracious pursuit of rebels. Its the story line of the Bible and its the message of Jonah.

The prophecy of Jonah is God in gracious pursuit. In fact the the big story of the Bible is pictured for us in the 4 short chapters of Jonah.

Chapter 1 is the narrative of rebellion, Chapter 2 is the narrative of repentance. Chapter 3 is the narrative of redemption. Chapter 4 is the narrative of restoration. God redeems repentant rebels and restores them to relationship with Him. this is the Bible. This is Jonah.

It begins with rebellion. God sent Jonah to preach to a people in rebellion against God. Notice how it begins: The word of the Lord came to Jonah Verse 1. The word that came to Jonah was clear, and it was direct.

Get up! Go to the great city of Nineveh and preach against it because their evil has come up to Me. God sent Jonah to a rebelling people.

The Ninevites evil was so bad that their evil came up before the Lord. They were not angels. So why would God send Jonah of all people to Nineveh?

Nineveh was a great city by any measure of worldly standards. It was the capital city of the Assyrian Empire, which at the time was the most prominent and powerful empire on earth.

It was a city that would have been known simply by its name, like New York, London, or Tokyo. It was the most prominent city in the most prominent nation in the land. Moreover, Nineveh was filled with great things.

It was filled with luscious and fabulous gardens. It was filled with a large and prosperous irrigation system. It was filled with great and impressive walls, huge displays of magnificent art, and grand libraries.

It was a large city. It was, as it says later in Jonah 3:3, “an extremely great city, a three-day walk” to traverse. It was populated by upward of 130,000 people at any time.

It was a city known by all, and like New York or London, you only had to say Nineveh, and everyone knew what city you were talking about. You knew where it was.

You knew what it was. Nineveh was a great city by any stretch of the imagination. But it was not only great for what it was; it was great also for what it did. It sinned. And it was full of evil.

It was a great city given over to great sin. You can imagine that a large metropolis like this would be filled with the wickedness of human hearts, and indeed it was.

It was filled with idolatry, greed, lust, murder, and all the wickedness of the human heart. It was filled with false worship. It was a pagan city and stood against the will and rule of God. God sent Jonah to speak out against this pagan city. This was not Israel; this was Assyria.

This was not Jerusalem or Bethlehem; this was Nineveh. These were not the people of God; these were the Ninevites. This should remind us of an important principle—namely, all nations are accountable to God. All people and all nations are subject to God and must give an account of their lives.

God sent Jonah to speak out against this pagan city. This was not Israel; this was Assyria. This was not Jerusalem or Bethlehem; this was Nineveh. These were not the people of God; these were the Ninevites.

This should remind us of an important principle, all nations ,are accountable, to God. All people and all nations are subject to God and must give an account of their lives.

The prophets of the Old Testament were not just sent to call Israel to get right with God, but at times the call was to the foreign nations as well. Amos prophesied of God’s judgment against Damascus, Gaza, Edom, Tyre, Moab, and others (Amos 1–2).

These nations were not recognized as God’s chosen people. Yet God would call them to account before His throne of justice. He calls all nations. All people must give an account for their waywardness and their rebellion against God.

Not a nation, not a people, and not a person who is not subject to God. Jesus is not simply the Lord of the church; Jesus is Lord of all (Rom. 14:7–8).

For not one of us lives for himself, and not one dies for himself; for if we live, we live for the Lord, or if we die, we die for the Lord; therefore whether we live or die, we are the Lord’s.

We are reminded that “every knee will bow—in heaven and on earth and under the earth—and every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father” (Phil. 2:10–11). Jesus is not simply Lord of the church; He is not simply Lord of the redeemed; He is Lord over all. Every knee shall bow, and every tongue

shall confess. God reminded Jonah and the world that He is God over all. And He holds all accountable for their rebellion. The remarkable thing is that God was gracious to these rebellious people.

God sent His word to them through the mouth of His prophet. He showed grace to them by pursuing them. However, in this instance, the prophet was no different from the people. God sent a rebelling prophet too a rebelling people.

God told Jonah, “Get up! Go to . . . Nineveh” (Jonah 1:2). The word of the Lord was clear. The will of the Lord, in this instance, was clear. And yet Jonah’s first instinct was to rebel because rebellion comes naturally.

We come into the world rebellious. You don’t have to teach your children how to rebel; just leave them alone! Because we are by nature rebellious people, they instinctively know how to rebel.

We rebel because we act as if we don’t know what the will of God is. Yet, as it was to Jonah, the will of God is clearer than most of us want or are willing to admit.

Too many of us are searching around for the will of God as if it were some ever-illusive magical formula. And because we are unable discern what God’s will is, we are content to live in disobedience.

We spend our time chasing after and hoping for a word from God. Unfortunately, what we fail to do is look into the Word of God. Like Jonah, if you would look to the Word of God, you would find the will of God.

God’s will was clear because God’s word was clear. It was that way to Jonah. It is that way to us. Do you want to know the will of God? It is clear if you go into the Word of God. The will of God is clear.

According to the Word of God, the will of God is for husbands to love their wives (Col. 3:19). The will of God is for wives to submit to their husbands (Col. 3:18). The will of God is for children to obey their parents (Col. 3:20).

The will of God is that we abstain from sexual immorality (1 Thess. 4:3). It doesn’t get any clearer than that. The will of God is that you and I would be growing in the grace and the knowledge of Jesus Christ (Col. 1:10).

It is the will of God that you and I give thanks in all things (1 Thess. 5:18). As you can see, the will of God is clear if we would go to the Word of God to find it.

So it was with Jonah; there was no misunderstanding of what God wanted Jonah to do. He heard the Word of God. But rebellion is not rooted in ignorance. Rebellion is rooted in rank disobedience. Jonah didn’t want to hear it.

We don’t want to know the will of God, and so we don’t go to the Word of God. We want to rebel. And so instead of rising and going to Nineveh, Jonah rose and fled to Tarshish.

Tarshish was a place far away. You may wonder where it is. You may wonder about its geographical location or the coordinates of its global positioning.

Yet the point is not so much where Tarshish is but what it represents. Tarshish represents obstinacy and rebellion. It is the place children go to spite their parents.

It is the place men and women go to hide from God. It is the place we convince ourselves we are out of sight and out of mind. Yet to think you are ever out of God’s sight is to be out of your mind.

When God determines to save, there is no escape to Tarshish. No matter how far you try to go, you can’t go far enough. No matter where you seek to hide, there is no hiding place (Ps. 139:7–8).

In fact, Tarshish should remind us that no matter how hard you run, mercy runs harder. Mercy runs faster. Jonah thought Tarshish would save him from God.

The wonderful truth is that God saved Jonah from Tarshish. He always does. Perhaps many days have been spent wondering why God forbade a job, a move, a promotion, or even a relationship.

Even though you ignored the warning signs and sought to silence God’s voice, God didn’t give in, nor did He give up on you. Instead, the mercy of God persisted until your eyes could see the truth.

The grace of God relentlessly pursued you until the will of God was not only good for you but also good to you. Thankfully, you never made it to Tarshish.

I am sure there were people in Tarshish who needed to hear the Word of God, but that is not what God sent Jonah to do. How often do we do that?

We rationalize our disobedience and our rebellion by thinking we can make something good come out of it. Jonah thought to himself, I’ll just go down to Tarshish, God.

You send somebody else to Nineveh. I’ll preach in Tarshish. I’m sure they need to hear the Word of God too. Yet partial obedience is disobedience.

Partial obedience only leads to full disobedience. God told Jonah to rise. He rose, but that’s where the obedience stopped. Instead of going east, Jonah went west. Instead of going north, Jonah went south. Instead of going to Nineveh, he went to Tarshish.

Jonah was not just fleeing but also refusing to do the will of God. Here’s the real issue: Jonah was fleeing from the presence of God. It wasn’t just that Jonah did not want to do what God had called him to do; Jonah didn’t want anything to do with God Himself, and that’s really the issue whenever we rebel.

When we rebel against God’s Word, we rebel against God. This was Jonah’s problem. He was rebelling against God. Nevertheless, rebellious people and prophets don’t stress God. God’s not stressed by your rebellion, and you know why? Because Because God is resourceful.

Rebellious people and prophets do not stress God out because God has unlimited resources at His disposal, and what He doesn’t yet have, He can create.

Jonah is not about the words of a prophet, but about a prophet. This was not Jonah’s first appearance in the Bible. Jonah prophesied to Jeroboam II one of Israels worst kings. God reversed Jonah’s prophecy through Amos.. Amos 6:13-14

He restored the border of Israel from the entrance of Hamath as far as the Sea of the Arabah, according to the word of the Lord, the God of Israel, which He spoke through His servant Jonah the son of Amittai, the prophet, who was of Gath-hepher.

Jonah’s character was questionable but God still loved him. God saw passed his faults and saw his need. Our needs are more important to God than our faults.

Jonah ran from God. And when he ran, Jonah discovered what everybody discovers when they run from God. When you run from God, you run smack into God.

I heard some one say once your arms are to short to box with God, and your legs are too short to run from God.

So what will it take for you to stop running from God and give Him all of you. To be all in with God.