Untitled Sermon

1. Locate Nineveh on a map. Where was it in relation to Israel?

God told Jonah to preach to Nineveh, the most important city in Assyria, the rising world power of Jonah’s day. Within 50 years, Nineveh would become the capital of the vast Assyrian Empire.

Jonah doesn’t say much about Nineveh’s wickedness, but the prophet Nahum gives us more insight. Nahum says that Nineveh was guilty of (1) evil plots against God (Nahum 1:9); (2) exploitation of the helpless (Nahum 2:12); (3) cruelty in war (Nahum 2:12, 13); (4) idolatry, prostitution, and witchcraft (Nahum 3:4).

God told Jonah to go to Nineveh, about 500 miles northeast of Israel, to warn of judgment and to declare that the people could receive mercy and forgiveness if they repented.—Life Application Study Bible.

2. What do we know about Nineveh back in the day?

Not only was Nineveh a powerful force, but they were a wicked force as well. Perhaps the only modern gauge by which to measure their cruelty is the Holocaust—Nazi Germany’s reign of terror upon Jewish people in World War II.

The Assyrians skinned their captives alive. They pulled out tongues. They gouged out eyes.

They mutilated entire cities by driving over their population with chariots fixed with scythes on the wheels.

They burned children alive and resorted to other atrocities designed to create fear and submission among their subjects.

They engaged in every sort of unspeakable physical cruelty and terror imaginable against those they conquered.

Do you understand why Jonah hated the Assyrians?

Why he was not only afraid to go there, but felt they didn’t deserve God’s grace?

The last thing in the world Jonah wanted to do was to go and be the messenger of hope and faith to these people—to offer them an opportunity to repent and be spared God’s judgment.

He just wanted the judgment to fall!—Jeremiah, D. (1998). The runaway prophet: Jonah (Study guide) (71–72). Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson Publishers.

3. Try to put yourself in Jonah’s shoes. What do you think it felt like to consider going to Nineveh?

Why did he do it? We can imagine some reasons.

We can imagine, first, that Jonah was overcome by thoughts of the mission’s difficulties, which are expressed very well in the commission.

God told Jonah that Nineveh was a very “great city,” and indeed it was.

In addition to what the book itself tells us—that the city was so large that it took three days to cross it and that it had 120,000 infants or small children (4:11)—we also know that it was the capital of the great Assyrian empire, that it had walls a hundred feet high and so broad that three chariots could run abreast around them.

Within the walls were gardens and even fields for cattle. For one man to arrive all alone with a message from an unknown God against such a city was ludicrous in the extreme.

What could one man do? Who would listen? Where were the armies that could break down such walls or storm such garrisons?

The men of Nineveh would ridicule the strange Jewish prophet. “Certainly,” as Hugh Martin, one of the most comprehensive commentators on this book, has written, “Jonah could not foresee that some such reception in ‘that great city’ was about the most friendly he could anticipate.

To be despised and simply laughed at, as a fanatic and fool, must have appeared to him inevitable, if indeed his fate should not be worse.”

If Jonah had been overcome with the thought of the difficulties of such a mission and because of them had fled to Tarshish, we could well understand him. Yet not a word in the story indicates that it was the difficulties that upset this rebellious prophet.

Perhaps it was danger? The second word in God’s description of the city is “wickedness.”

If Jonah had taken note of that wickedness and had refused to obey for that reason, this too would be understandable. Indeed, the more we learn of Nineveh the more dangerous the mission seems.

We think of the prophecy of Nahum. Nahum’s entire prophecy was against the wickedness of Nineveh, and the descriptions of it are vivid.—Boice Expositional Commentary—An Expositional Commentary—The Minor Prophets, Volume 1: Hosea-Jonah.

Jonah 4:2 (CSB)

2 He prayed to the Lord, “Please, Lord, isn’t this what I said while I was still in my own country? That’s why I fled toward Tarshish in the first place. I knew that you are a gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger, abounding in faithful love, and one who relents from sending disaster.

4. Skip ahead to Jonah 4:2. What was the real reason Jonah did not want to go to Nineveh?

What was the reason then? In the fourth chapter of the book, after God has already brought about the revival and has spared the Ninevites from judgment, Jonah explains the reason, arguing that it was precisely because of this outcome that he had disobeyed originally.

He knew that God was gracious and that God was not sending him to Nineveh only to announce a pending judgment. He was sending him so Nineveh might repent.

Jonah’s own words are: “O Lord, is this not what I said when I was still at home? That is why I was so quick to flee to Tarshish. I knew that you are a gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger and abounding in love, a God who relents from sending calamity” (4:2).

As we read these words carefully we realize the reason why Jonah did not want to go to Nineveh.

Those who lived there were enemies of his people, the Jews, and he was afraid that if he did go to them with his message of judgment, they would believe it and repent, and God would bless them.

He did not want them blessed! God could bless Israel. But Jonah would be damned (literally) before he would see God’s blessing shed on these enemies.

He fled to Tarshish. We can understand the geography and Jonah’s motives if we can imagine the word of the Lord coming to a Jew who lived in New York during World War II, telling him to go to Berlin to preach to Nazi Germany, and instead of this, he goes to San Francisco and takes a boat for Hong Kong.—Boice Expositional Commentary—An Expositional Commentary—The Minor Prophets, Volume 1: Hosea-Jonah.

5. The fact that God wanted to send Jonah to Nineveh … what does that tell us about the heart of God? What do we learn about God from this?

Jonah. The Book of Jonah may be the most missionary book in the entire Bible.

The book represents a stinging rebuke of Israel’s isolationist attitude. Jonah represented the very worst mentality of the chosen people. Yahweh called him to go to Nineveh (the home of Israel’s bitter enemy, the Assyrians) and warn them that they were going to be destroyed by God.

Notice that this was not on the surface a truly missionary call; it was a mandate to declare bad news—the destruction of Nineveh.

Yet Jonah was unwilling to go to them even for that purpose. Was this because he suspected that they might repent and that the Lord would relent, forgive, and restore?

His petulant and childish response when the Lord did forgive the Ninevites might indicate such.

Here we see at least a clear sending of a messenger to a foreign land to convey a divine message, albeit one of destruction.—Terry, J. M., Smith, E. C., & Anderson, J. (1998). Missiology: An introduction to the foundations, history, and strategies of world missions (59). Nashville, TN: Broadman & Holman Publishers.

The missionary purpose of the church rests firmly on the foundation of the missionary nature of God.

The missionary purpose of God’s people springs, according to Douglas Webster, directly from God (Webster 1965:1). The clear affirmation of Scripture is that our God is a missionary God.

Both the Old and New Testaments speak clearly to his missionary heart (Gen. 3:15; 12:1–3; Exod. 9:16; Isa. 42:1–7; Jonah; Matt. 28:18–20).—Terry, J. M., Smith, E. C., & Anderson, J. (1998). Missiology: An introduction to the foundations, history, and strategies of world missions (119–120). Nashville, TN: Broadman & Holman Publishers.

6. Why does missions matter to God? Why should missions matter to us?

Missions is not the ultimate goal of the church. Worship is.

Missions exists because worship doesn’t.

Worship is ultimate, not missions, because God is ultimate, not man. When this age is over, and the countless millions of the redeemed fall on their faces before the throne of God, missions will be no more. It is a temporary necessity. But worship abides forever.

Worship, therefore, is the fuel and goal of missions.

It’s the goal of missions because in missions we simply aim to bring the nations into the white-hot enjoyment of God’s glory.

The goal of missions is the gladness of the peoples in the greatness of God. “The Lord reigns, let the earth rejoice; let the many coastlands be glad!” (Ps. 97:1). “Let the peoples praise you, O God; let all the peoples praise you! Let the nations be glad and sing for joy!” (Ps. 67:3–4).

But worship is also the fuel of missions.

Passion for God in worship precedes the offer of God in preaching.

You can’t commend what you don’t cherish. Missionaries will never call out, “Let the nations be glad!” who cannot say from the heart, “I rejoice in the Lord.… I will be glad and exult in you, I will sing praise to your name, O Most High” (Ps. 104:34; 9:2). Missions begins and ends in worship.—Let the Nations Be Glad: The Supremacy of God in Missions.

7. What are some key verses that remind us of the importance of missions?

GENESIS 12:1–3 The Lord said to Abram: Go out from your land, your relatives, and your father’s house to the land that I will show you. I will make you into a great nation, I will bless you, I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, I will curse those who treat you with contempt, and all the peoples on earth will be blessed through you.

EXODUS 19:5, 6 Now if you will listen to Me and carefully keep My covenant, you will be My own possession out of all the peoples, although all the earth is Mine, and you will be My kingdom of priests and My holy nation.

ISAIAH 6:8 Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying: Who should I send? Who will go for Us? I said: Here I am. Send me.

MATTHEW 24:14 This good news of the kingdom will be proclaimed in all the world as a testimony to all nations. And then the end will come.

MATTHEW 28:18–20 Then Jesus came near and said to them, “All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. 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, teaching them to observe everything I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”

MARK 16:15 Go into all the world and preach the gospel to the whole creation.

LUKE 24:46–48 “This is what is written: the Messiah would suffer and rise from the dead the third day, and repentance for forgiveness of sins would be proclaimed in His name to all the nations, beginning at Jerusalem. You are witnesses of these things. And look, I am sending you what My Father promised. As for you, stay in the city until you are empowered from on high.”

JOHN 20:21 Jesus said to them again, “Peace to you! As the Father has sent Me, I also send you.”

ACTS 1:8 But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be My witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.

1 PETER 2:9–10 But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for His possession, so that you may proclaim the praises of the One who called you out of darkness into His marvelous light. Once you were not a people, but now you are God’s people; you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.

http://www.edstetzer.com/2010/01/top-ten-scripture-texts-on-god.html

8. What do you think motivates people today to give to missions, pray for missions, do missions?

Two Americans were dinner guests of a tribal chief in a South Pacific island. The subject of missions came up. One of the Americans said he didn’t believe in missions. The host expressed surprise. Then he remarked: “You should believe in missions. Until a few years ago I was a cannibal, but a missionary came to my island and won me to Christ. Otherwise, instead of you being my dinner guest, you would be my dinner.”—Hobbs, H. H. (1990). My favorite illustrations (186). Nashville, TN: Broadman Press.

9. How did Jonah respond to God’s call?

Jonah, however, chooses to flee in the opposite direction (1:3).

The first words of the phrase “Jonah ran away” and the first words in 1:2 (“Go”) echo each other in Hebrew (lit., “rise and go”/Jonah “rose and fled”).

The original language, in other words, more sharply contrasts what God asks Jonah to do with what he does immediately.

Jonah knows that this call from God will not simply go away.

He immediately grasps the radical and pressing nature of the call (4:2, “that is why I was so quick to flee”) and thinks that only radical and immediate action will save him from God’s call on his life.—Bruckner, J. (2004). Jonah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah. The NIV Application Commentary (42). Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Publishing House.

10. Where was Tarshish? Why do you think Jonah choose Tarshish as a destination? Why not stay put and just refuse to go to Nineveh?

Verse 3 gives rise to two common questions: “Why Tarshish?” and “Why is Tarshish mentioned three times in one verse?” (“headed for Tarshish … that port … sailed for Tarshish”).

Tarshish was a Phoenician city in southern Spain, just west of Gibraltar.

Tyre (north of Israel’s coast) depended on the large merchant ships of Tarshish for shipments of silver, iron, tin, and lead (Isa. 23:1–14; Ezek. 27:12, 25).

It was known as the westernmost place in the Mediterranean world (Ps. 72:10; Isa. 60:9; 66:19; Ezek. 38:13).—Bruckner, J. (2004). Jonah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah. The NIV Application Commentary (42–43). Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Publishing House.

11. How did running work out for Jonah?

As a prophet of God, he knew he could not escape His presence, but he ignored this and made a clear-cut decision not to preach God’s message to the people of this very wicked city.

Yet even though Jonah made a calculated decision to leave the scene, he was still in the crosshairs of God.

As the psalmist wrote, “Even the darkness is not dark to You, and the night is as bright as the day. Darkness and light are alike to [God]” (Ps. 139:12).

If you think there is a place where you can hide from God, you are dead wrong. It is absolutely foolish to believe that you can run from His presence.

But this is exactly what many people do.

They think that by refusing to go to church, they can run from Him.

Or they believe that when they ignore His will for their lives, God will somehow forget what He has called them to do and change His mind.

When people are disobedient, they suffer the consequences, just as Jonah did.—Stanley, C. (2008). In step with god: Understanding his ways and plans for your life. Nashville: Thomas Nelson.

12. Do you think God sent the storm or do you think it just happened? Why do you answer the way that you do?

This was no ordinary storm. These sailors would have braved out many Mediterranean squalls in the past, including perhaps some winter storms on the odd occasion when they dared to put to sea outside the safe sailing season between the end of April and the middle of September.

But this was a category of storm none of them had faced before. It was ‘a great wind’. Its ferocity instilled an intense fear among the entire crew, without exception (v. 5).

What is more, there was no let-up in the storm. Having hit the ship with extreme and sudden force, the storm intensified and the sea grew rougher than ever (vv. 11, 13).

The Lord does not merely send storms—quite literally, he hurls them.

The same Hebrew word occurs three times in chapter 1.

In verse 4 he hurls the storm; in verse 5 the sailors hurl the cargo into the sea, and in verse 15 they hurl Jonah overboard.

The hurling is not the action of a frustrated deity petulantly throwing a tantrum and taking revenge on the man who refused to do his bidding.

Rather, it indicates precision and purpose in God’s actions. He is not out to punish Jonah, but to turn him round and restore him.—Mackrell, P. (2007). Opening up Jonah. Opening Up Commentary (26–27). Leominster: Day One Publications.

13. What do we learn about God from the fact that He sent this storm?

How far do you want God to go in getting your attention? If God has to choose between your eternal safety and your earthly comfort, which do you hope he chooses?

What if he moved you to another land? (As he did Abraham.) What if he called you out of retirement? (Remember Moses?) How about the voice of an angel or the bowel of a fish? (A la Gideon and Jonah.) How about a promotion like Daniel’s or a demotion like Samson’s?

God does what it takes to get our attention.

Isn’t that the message of the Bible? The relentless pursuit of God. God on the hunt.

God in the search.

Peeking under the bed for hiding kids, stirring the bushes for lost sheep.—A Gentle Thunder / Lucado, M., & Gibbs, T. A. (2000). Grace for the moment: Inspirational thoughts for each day of the year (226). Nashville, TN: J. Countryman.

14. Imagine it were not so. Imagine we served a God that when he ran He just let us go. How would that world be different?

The fact that God meets us at the pass of every wrong path, every shrine to a false god, every misguided loyalty, and every expression of self-serving unrighteousness is really comforting. What if He did not care enough to pursue us; what if when we ran from God we were not caught?

T. S. Eliot wrote, “And at the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time.”

And we will know something else. We will know that we are loved. Why else would God have dogged our steps, pursued us indefatigably? Life’s greatest disappointment, the most monumental despair would be to think God would let us escape.

It is a sublime moment of truth with God that the metaphor of the lion, the bear, and the serpent is superseded with another image.

Between us and the confrontive lion and the pursuing bear and the death-imposing serpent stand the Lamb. “Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!” And we look again at the faces of the lion and the bear and realize what we had not seen before.

The face of the Lamb had always been there if we would only stop running long enough to see.—Ogilvie, L. J., & Ogilvie, L. J. (1990). Vol. 22: Hosea, Joel, Amos, Obadiah, Jonah. The Preacher’s Commentary Series (337). Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson Inc.

15. How do you think Jonah would have predicted this would work out? What was he thinking?

As regards how his running away would solve his problems, there may have been an element of unthinking, irrational response, induced by guilt.

He knew he was in the wrong and, like Adam and Eve trying to hide from the presence of the LORD among the trees of the garden (Gen. 3:8), he just wanted to avoid the one he had offended.

It is unlikely that Jonah really believed he could find somewhere that the LORD’S writ did not run.

He himself will shortly confess (1:9) that the LORD is God of heaven and earth. He never doubted that, or believed that one could escape the scrutiny of God (Jer. 23:24).

As chapter 2 shows, Jonah was conversant with the Psalms, and would have known the words of David, ‘Where can I go from your Spirit? Where can I flee from your presence?’

Even settling ‘on the far side of the sea’ would not suffice (Ps. 139:7, 9).—MacKay, J. L. (1998). Jonah, Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk and Zephaniah. Focus on the Bible Commentary (22–23). Ross-shire, Great Britain: Christian Focus Publications.

16. Is obedience always good for us? Is disobedience ever good for us?

17. If it is always good for us to follow God, why did Jonah run? Why do we sometimes run?

Jonah was running from the presence of God.

This was madness. Jonah knew the Psalms and knew what David was talking about when he spoke of being filled ‘with joy’ in the presence of the Lord and of ‘eternal pleasures at your right hand’ (Ps. 16:11).

That thought ought to have troubled him. What was he doing fleeing the place where fulfilment and joy met?

So determined was he upon this course of action that he would take it, even if it led to death. Ultimately he opts for suicide before repentance.

But as Jonah makes his way to the quayside at Joppa, there was probably very little hint of what was to come.

The day may have dawned bright and sunny. Everything seems to work out well: a ship is there; it happens to be going just where Jonah is headed and Jonah has the right money.

There is even a possibility that he may have financed the entire voyage.

The thought of leaving family and friends was perhaps submerged beneath the exciting prospects of a new life beckoning.

You could even imagine him finding some ironic amusement in singing the words of Psalm 55:6: ‘Oh, that I had the wings of a dove! [literally, the wings of a Jonah] I would fly away and be at rest.’

As the ship left port, conditions for Jonah, both within and without, were set to change.—Mackrell, P. (2007). Opening up Jonah. Opening Up Commentary (22–23). Leominster: Day One Publications.

Jonah 1:6 (CSB)

6 The captain approached him and said, “What are you doing sound asleep? Get up! Call to your god. Maybe this god will consider us, and we won’t perish.”

18. Verse 6. What does Jonah’s sleeping in the storm tell you about him? How could he sleep in this storm?

Jonah’s deep sleep in the recesses of the ship reveals his indifference to his own life and the lives of others.

To see such callousness so early in the development of the narrative distances many readers from Jonah.

Jonah’s aversion to the evil Ninevites is understandable, but his indifference to the life of his shipmates seems callous.

The pagan captain speaks of their agitation: “How can you sleep? Get up and call on your god!” (1:6). Telling the story in this way converts even the pious reader to the perspective of the impious captain.

Jonah’s deep sleep is the bottom of a quick slide from “a prophet in the presence of the LORD in Israel” to “deadly indifference in the hull of a sinking ship.”

The Hebrew uses the same word root to describe how Jonah “went down to Joppa” (1:3, yarad), “went aboard [the ship]” (1:3, yarad), and “had gone below deck” (1:5, yarad). When he falls into a “deep sleep” (1:5, yeradam), the Hebrew words are a play on similar sounds (yarad/yeradam).

The second root (radam) is repeated by the captain, who says, “How can you sleep [nireddam]?” Jonah’s sleeping is the bottom of his flight from Yahweh (see further comments at 2:7).

The captain tells Jonah to “Get up!”—in essence, to reverse his direction from “down” to “up.”

The captain uses the same word (qum) that Yahweh spoke to Jonah at the beginning (1:2; lit., “Get up and go”).—Bruckner, J. (2004). Jonah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah. The NIV Application Commentary (44). Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Publishing House.

19. Jonah ran. Let’s talk about us. Have you known anyone else who ran from God when God called? Who has a story?

Have you ever tried to talk God out of a plan? It’s the most frustrating experience I can imagine.

You think you’re being “persistent,” but all you’re doing is yanking those knots tighter. You and I need to work with God, even as we’re working for God. When He lays His plan on us, there is really no other alternative.

The problem with that arrangement is that His choices often seem so illogical from our point of view. We tell ourselves it can’t be what He really means.

Honestly, now, would you have chosen Jonah to be the evangelist at Nineveh, especially when you knew he hated those Ninevites with all his heart? Of course not. You would have ruled him out immediately. Surely most any first-year seminary student would be a better choice than someone with a bitter, racist attitude toward the citizens.

God thought otherwise; Jonah was his man, all the way.

Would you have picked Gideon to lead a revolution against a powerful occupying army? Scripture says of that mighty force, “The vast armies of Midian, Amalek, and the other nations of the Mideast were crowded across the valley like locusts—yes, like the sand upon the seashore” (Judges 6:12, TLB). And Gideon would lead the charge? What a joke! The angel of the Lord had to track down this mighty warrior who, in great fear of the enemy, threshed grain as he crouched in a winepress.

And how about Moses? Would you have singled out a sun-withered, eighty-year-old shepherd to face down one of the mightiest kings in the world? Moses had been out to pasture for forty years. He had completely lost touch with his people. He’d been raising a little family, living with and working for his father-in-law. In four decades the man couldn’t scrape together enough shekels to build a little place of his own. Admit it, doesn’t he seem like a highly unlikely prospect for the job of delivering an entire people group from the clutches of a mighty nation?

It certainly seemed so to Moses. It made about as much logical sense as a desert bush that burns and burns but never burns up.

That’s the way he felt on that banner day when the Lord met him in the desert. And that’s the way you and I often feel, too. We don’t see things the way heaven sees them. God says to us, “You don’t look at people the way I look at people. You look at a person’s outward appearance and draw your conclusions from that. Not Me. I look beneath the surface—deep into the heart. I look to find some very specific qualities within an individual, and then I make My choice.”—Swindoll, C. R. (2009). A man of selfless dedication Moses. Nashville: Thomas Nelson.

20. Have you ever run from God when God called you?