Arise, Go and Tell (Jonah)

Formal Elements / Descriptive Data

Text: Jonah

CIT: God is merciful even to them who have failed to extend mercy to others, and He forgives those who humble themselves under His Word

Proposition: God prefers to forgive your repentance over punishing you for remaining stubborn in your sins

Statement of Purpose:

(1) MO – Consecrative

(2) SO – I want my hearers to arise and take God’s message of salvation to a lost and dying world

Title (Topic/Name): Arise, Go and Tell

Informal Elements / Rhetorical Data

Introduction:

Matthew 12:38–42 KJV 1900

38 Then certain of the scribes and of the Pharisees answered, saying, Master, we would see a sign from thee. 39 But he answered and said unto them, An evil and adulterous generation seeketh after a sign; and there shall no sign be given to it, but the sign of the prophet Jonas: 40 For as Jonas was three days and three nights in the whale’s belly; so shall the Son of man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth. 41 The men of Nineveh shall rise in judgment with this generation, and shall condemn it: because they repented at the preaching of Jonas; and, behold, a greater than Jonas is here. 42 The queen of the south shall rise up in the judgment with this generation, and shall condemn it: for she came from the uttermost parts of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon; and, behold, a greater than Solomon is here.

Note - Jesus did with compassion what Jonah did with complaint!

Get Attention: What is the difference between Nineveh and Washington DC? Everything (Jonah) & Nothing (Nahum)!

State intent to read the entirety of the Book of Jonah during the message

Develop the themes of Jonah as explained in the Lexham Research Commentary:

Despite its mere forty-eight verses, the book of Jonah touches on numerous theological themes, including God’s sovereignty, God’s mercy and compassion, and God’s concern for Gentiles. The book is also about a disobedient Israelite prophet and the repentance of the wicked. [Wendy Widder, Jonah, ed. Douglas Mangum and Elizabeth Vince, Lexham Research Commentaries (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2017).]

CIT: God is merciful even to them who have failed to extend mercy to others, and He forgives those who humble themselves under His Word

Proposition: God prefers to forgive your repentance over punishing you for remaining stubborn in your sins

Purpose: arise and take God’s message of salvation to a lost and dying world

Body – Development – Outline:

I. Jonah’s First Chance: Jonah Went Down (Jonah 1:1-2:10)

EXP:

Jonah’s Flight (Jonah 1:1-7);

Jonah 1:1–7 KJV 1900

1 Now the word of the Lord came unto Jonah the son of Amittai, saying, 2 Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and cry against it; for their wickedness is come up before me. 3 But Jonah rose up to flee unto Tarshish from the presence of the Lord, and went down to Joppa; and he found a ship going to Tarshish: so he paid the fare thereof, and went down into it, to go with them unto Tarshish from the presence of the Lord. 4 But the Lord sent out a great wind into the sea, and there was a mighty tempest in the sea, so that the ship was like to be broken. 5 Then the mariners were afraid, and cried every man unto his god, and cast forth the wares that were in the ship into the sea, to lighten it of them. But Jonah was gone down into the sides of the ship; and he lay, and was fast asleep. 6 So the shipmaster came to him, and said unto him, What meanest thou, O sleeper? arise, call upon thy God, if so be that God will think upon us, that we perish not. 7 And they said every one to his fellow, Come, and let us cast lots, that we may know for whose cause this evil is upon us. So they cast lots, and the lot fell upon Jonah.

Jonah’s Prayer for Deliverance (Jonah 2:1-9);

Jonah 2:1–9 KJV 1900

1 Then Jonah prayed unto the Lord his God out of the fish’s belly, 2 And said, I cried by reason of mine affliction unto the Lord, and he heard me; Out of the belly of hell cried I, and thou heardest my voice. 3 For thou hadst cast me into the deep, in the midst of the seas; And the floods compassed me about: All thy billows and thy waves passed over me. 4 Then I said, I am cast out of thy sight; Yet I will look again toward thy holy temple. 5 The waters compassed me about, even to the soul: The depth closed me round about, The weeds were wrapped about my head. 6 I went down to the bottoms of the mountains; The earth with her bars was about me for ever: Yet hast thou brought up my life from corruption, O Lord my God. 7 When my soul fainted within me I remembered the Lord: And my prayer came in unto thee, into thine holy temple. 8 They that observe lying vanities forsake their own mercy. 9 But I will sacrifice unto thee with the voice of thanksgiving; I will pay that that I have vowed. Salvation is of the Lord.

Jonah’s Resurrection (Jonah 2:10)

Jonah 2:10 KJV 1900

10 And the Lord spake unto the fish, and it vomited out Jonah upon the dry land.

ILL: Jonah 1:17

Jonah 1:17 KJV 1900

17 Now the Lord had prepared a great fish to swallow up Jonah. And Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights.

Many people find it difficult to take the Book of Jonah seriously because they find it hard to believe that a man could be swallowed by a whale and live to tell the story. The following account of a modern-day man who underwent a similar experience and did live to tell his story may be of help. The following account is taken from the Princeton Theological Review, Vol. 25, 1927, p. 636:

In February 1891, the whaling ship Star of the East was in the vicinity of the Falkland Islands and the lookout sighted a large sperm whale three miles away. Two boats were launched and in a short time one of the harpooners was enabled to spear the fish. The second boat attacked the whale, but was upset by a lash of its tail and the men thrown into the sea, one man being drowned, and another, James Bartley, having disappeared, could not be found. The whale was killed and in a few hours was lying by the ship’s side and the crew were busy with axes and spades removing the blubber. They worked all day and part of the night. Next morning, they attached some tackle to the stomach which was hoisted on the deck. The sailors were startled by something in it which gave spasmodic signs of life, and inside was found the missing sailor doubled up and unconscious. He was laid on the deck and treated to a bath of sea water which soon revived him.… He remained two weeks a raving lunatic.… At the end of the third week he had entirely recovered from the shock and resumed his duties.

Bartley affirms that he would probably have lived inside his house of flesh until he starved, for he lost his senses through fright and not from lack of air. He remembers the sensation of being thrown out of the boat into the sea.… He was then encompassed by a great darkness and he felt he was slipping along a smooth passage of some sort that seemed to move and carry him forward. The sensation lasted but a short time and then he realized he had more room. He felt about him and his hands came in contact with a yielding, slimy substance that seemed to shrink from his touch. It finally dawned upon him that he had been swallowed by the whale.… He could easily breathe, but the heat was terrible. It was not a scorching, stifling nature, but it seemed to open the pores of his skin and draw out his vitality.… His skin was exposed to the action of the gastric juice … face, neck and hands were bleached to a deadly whiteness and took on the appearance of parchment … (and) never recovered its natural appearance … (though otherwise) his health did not seem affected by his terrible experience. [Michael P. Green, 1500 Illustrations for Biblical Preaching (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 2000), 415–416.]

APP: Failing to Deliver an Important Message

During a surprise audit, the U.S. Postal Service discovered that some local managers had temporarily stashed unprocessed mail in parked trailers so that supervisors wouldn’t notice it as delayed. Auditors found millions of pieces of undelivered mail, including 2.3 million bulk-business letters, some of which were delayed nine days, and 800,000 first-class letters, which had been held for three days. What should the penalty be when the people entrusted with delivering something fail to do the work? The world may not be expecting the delivery, but they are awaiting the message of the good news concerning God sending his Son. We must be faithful to deliver the message. [Christopher John Farley, Michelle Crouch, and Leslie Whitaker, “Please, Mr. Postman!” http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,981188,00.html.] —Jim L. Wilson and Rodger Russell

TS: When God calls you to go east, west is clearly against His divine will, God is merciful even to them who have failed to extend mercy to others, and He forgives those who humble themselves under His Word, thankfully we see-

II. Jonah’s Second Chance: Preach the Word (Jonah 3:1-4:11)

EXP:

Jonah Preaches to Lost Nineveh (Jonah 3:1-10);

Jonah 3:1–10 KJV 1900

1 And the word of the Lord came unto Jonah the second time, saying, 2 Arise, go unto Nineveh, that great city, and preach unto it the preaching that I bid thee. 3 So Jonah arose, and went unto Nineveh, according to the word of the Lord. Now Nineveh was an exceeding great city of three days’ journey. 4 And Jonah began to enter into the city a day’s journey, and he cried, and said, Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown. 5 So the people of Nineveh believed God, and proclaimed a fast, and put on sackcloth, from the greatest of them even to the least of them. 6 For word came unto the king of Nineveh, and he arose from his throne, and he laid his robe from him, and covered him with sackcloth, and sat in ashes. 7 And he caused it to be proclaimed and published through Nineveh by the decree of the king and his nobles, saying, Let neither man nor beast, herd nor flock, taste any thing: let them not feed, nor drink water: 8 But let man and beast be covered with sackcloth, and cry mightily unto God: yea, let them turn every one from his evil way, and from the violence that is in their hands. 9 Who can tell if God will turn and repent, and turn away from his fierce anger, that we perish not? 10 And God saw their works, that they turned from their evil way; and God repented of the evil, that he had said that he would do unto them; and he did it not.

Note BKC on God’s “Repentance”:

God’s mercies are always unmerited; His grace is never earned. Repentance is never a work to be rewarded. But this is not to say that God does not act in response to such repentance. Nineveh’s repentance delayed God’s destruction of the city for about 150 years. The people evidently fell into sin again, so that later the city was destroyed, in 612 b.c [John D. Hannah, “Jonah,” in The Bible Knowledge Commentary: An Exposition of the Scriptures, ed. J. F. Walvoord and R. B. Zuck, vol. 1 (Wheaton, IL: Victor Books, 1985), 1470.]

The fact that God changes his mind here does not represent a divine failing, but rather reveals his earnest desire to be true to his own immutable nature. [Donald J. Wiseman, T. Desmond Alexander, and Bruce K. Waltke, Obadiah, Jonah and Micah: An Introduction and Commentary, vol. 26, Tyndale Old Testament Commentaries (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1988), 137.]

Jonah’s Complaint in God’s Faithfulness (Jonah 4:1-9);

Jonah 4:1–9 KJV 1900

1 But it displeased Jonah exceedingly, and he was very angry. 2 And he prayed unto the Lord, and said, I pray thee, O Lord, was not this my saying, when I was yet in my country? Therefore I fled before unto Tarshish: for I knew that thou art a gracious God, and merciful, slow to anger, and of great kindness, and repentest thee of the evil. 3 Therefore now, O Lord, take, I beseech thee, my life from me; for it is better for me to die than to live. 4 Then said the Lord, Doest thou well to be angry? 5 So Jonah went out of the city, and sat on the east side of the city, and there made him a booth, and sat under it in the shadow, till he might see what would become of the city. 6 And the Lord God prepared a gourd, and made it to come up over Jonah, that it might be a shadow over his head, to deliver him from his grief. So Jonah was exceeding glad of the gourd. 7 But God prepared a worm when the morning rose the next day, and it smote the gourd that it withered. 8 And it came to pass, when the sun did arise, that God prepared a vehement east wind; and the sun beat upon the head of Jonah, that he fainted, and wished in himself to die, and said, It is better for me to die than to live. 9 And God said to Jonah, Doest thou well to be angry for the gourd? And he said, I do well to be angry, even unto death.

Note - Is this reaction not almost prophetic of Jesus’ teaching regarding the Prodigal’s older brother (Israel)? Are we not, according to the Apostle Paul in Romans 9-11, to be, as Gentiles graffed in to the promises and mercies of God by faith, a provocation of Israel to jealousy as they remain in their broken-off state? Would to God that they were graffed in again! As they will be one day with us Gentiles together with God as both the Church and Israel are represented in the New Jerusalem that John saw, Even So....

Jonah Rebuked by the Lord (Jonah 4:10-11)

Jonah 4:10–11 KJV 1900

10 Then said the Lord, Thou hast had pity on the gourd, for the which thou hast not laboured, neither madest it grow; which came up in a night, and perished in a night: 11 And should not I spare Nineveh, that great city, wherein are more than sixscore thousand persons that cannot discern between their right hand and their left hand; and also much cattle?

ILL: Avalanche Ahead

When Dave Boon first saw the avalanche that swept his car over a guardrail on Interstate 40 in Denver, Colorado, it was only a puff of powder. After that brief warning, a snowy burst of wind knocked the car out of control. “Not even a second later, a freight train hit us,” Boon said. Boon had been traveling with his wife, June, and Gary Martinez, thirteen, on their way to a youth group ski trip. The three of them had been discussing the possibility of an avalanche. “We were talking about avalanches and how there was so much snow and stuff. Then we turned the corner and saw some white powder, and it slammed us into the guardrail,” Boon said. The wall of snow knocked the car over the rail and caused it to roll hundreds of feet down a steep mountain slope. In the middle of the descent, the car struck a tree and was knocked out of the avalanche’s grasp. It came to a stop upside down and pointing back uphill. Fortunately, Boon and his wife were well trained. After clearing an airway and freeing himself from the seat belt, Boon was able to exit the car along with Martinez and then cut his wife free from her restraints. Despite several bumps, bruises, and scrapes, none of the three required hospitalization. For Boon, the experience was a reminder that warnings and hints of danger need to be respected. “The signs read, ‘Avalanche Area, No Stopping,’ ” he said. “We’ve driven by that place hundreds of times. We’ve skied avalanche chutes, worn beepers, always carried an avalanche shovel. We’ve seen avalanches. But in our wildest dreams, we never imagined getting hit in a car by one.” —Patrick O’Driscoll, “Avalanche Sends Travelers Tumbling,” USA Today (January 8, 2007) [Craig Brian Larson and Phyllis Ten Elshof, 1001 Illustrations That Connect (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Publishing House, 2008), 236–237.]

APP: Our commission is not to make sure every person heeds, only that every soul we come into contact with hears of the opportunity for forgiveness of sins through faith in Christ.

Conclusion:

God is merciful even to them who have failed to extend mercy to others, and He forgives those who humble themselves under His Word

Whether you are a child of God who has been wayward, or even a preacher who has neglected God’s will, or a lost sinner on your way to hell, God’s mercy is freely available for you to find. As you hear His Word, and receive His goodness, let that lead you to change your mind toward Him, and you will know His grace.