September 11, 2022
Jonah 1
“Prophet on the Run”
Service Overview: Running from God is never a good idea. But even in the midst of a prophet’s rebellion, God’s grace makes a way.
Memory Verse for the Week:
Proverbs 15:3 (NIV) – “The eyes of the Lord are everywhere, keeping watch on the wicked and the good.”
Background Information:
- Those who consider the book of Jonah an allegory or a parable should note that 2 Kings 14:25 identifies Jonah as a real person, a Jewish prophet from Gath Hepher in Zebulun who ministered in the northern kingdom of Israel during the reign of Jeroboam II (793–753 BC). They should also note that our Lord considered Jonah a historic person and pointed to him as a type of His own death, burial, and resurrection (Matt. 12:41; Luke 11:32). (Warren Wiersbe, Be Amazed, 79)
- Jonah lived during the reign of the Israelite king, Jeroboam II and probably made his preaching visit to Nineveh sometime during the kingship of the weak, threatened Aššur-Dan III (773–756 B.C.). The rapid repentance of the Ninevites (3:5–9) was exactly what Jonah had hoped against, but a sovereign God who loves all nations had other plans, and a reluctant prophet became the messenger for a great message of mercy. (Douglas Stuart, Hosea-Jonah, 14)
- Among these so-called Minor Prophets, Jonah is the only one which, in the ordinary sense of the word, does not contain any prophecy at all, except his announcement of the threatened destruction of Nineveh within forty days, which was not fulfilled. Yet the book is distinctly prophetic, and as such is twice referred to by our Lord Jesus Christ. (H.A. Ironside, Notes on the History of Jonah, 4)
- (v.9) Jonah’s use of a familiar liturgical phrase to describe his god may strike a reader as ironic. Yahweh, affirms Jonah, is the creator of the world, heaven and earth, the sea and the land. Yet here is Jonah, attempting to flee from him! As the psalmist puts it: “Where shall I go from your spirit [wind!]? Or where from your face [your presence] shall I flee? If I ascend to heaven, there will be you! Or if I bed down in Sheol, behold—you!” (Ps 139:7–8). (David Gunn, Eerdmans Commentary on the Bible: Jonah, Kindle Edition)
- Nineveh provided the last word in military strength and security. Her walls were one hundred feet in height and built on a rock foundation. Overshadowing the walls were 1,500 watchtowers, some two hundred feet in height. Everything about this mighty city said that she would last for centuries. (Paul Mackrell, Opening Up Jonah, 12)
- There were around five times as many people living there as lived in Jerusalem. A more impressive city could not be found. From God’s perspective she was also great in wickedness. It was this which literally came up before his face. The God who sees all, hears all and understands all, also smells all. And Nineveh stank. (Paul Mackrell, Opening Up Jonah, 19)
The question to answer…
What is it the Lord is communicating through this first chapter of Jonah?
Answer…
How God’s grace seeks to save enemies; even if that means chastening his prophets to do so.
What’s vital to recognize in understanding Jonah and God’s grace from this first chapter?
- The disdain behind Jonah’s defiance.
(vv. 3, 4:1-3 | 1 Sam. 12:14-15; Prov. 17:11; Mark 12:31; Acts 10:34; Gal. 3:28; Ja. 2:1-26)
Assyria was not a nation easy to love by anyone’s standards, and it is not surprising that an Israelite prophet should resist the call to a ministry of compassion in its leading city. (Douglas Stuart, Word Biblical Themes: Hosea-Jonah, 89)
Jonah’s wrong attitude toward God’s will stemmed from a feeling that the Lord was asking him to do an impossible thing. God commanded the prophet to go to Israel’s enemy, Assyria, and give the city of Nineveh opportunity to repent, and Jonah would much rather see the city destroyed. The Assyrians were a cruel people who had often abused Israel, and Jonah’s narrow patriotism took precedence over his theology. (Warren Wiersbe, Be Amazed, 82)
- God’s gracious chastening in order to realign his prophet’s priorities.
(v. 4 | Deuteronomy 8:5-6; Job 5:17; Proverbs 3:11-12; 12:1; 22:15; Heb. 12:11; Rev. 3:19)
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. (Paul Mackrell, Opening Up Jonah, 27)
- The concession that made repentance possible.
(vv. 9-12; ch.2 | Proverbs 28:13; Ez. 18:21-23; Acts 3:19; Rom. 2:4; 2 Cor. 7:10; 2 Pet. 3:9)
Jonah sees this to be the punishment of his iniquity, he accepts it, and justifies God in it. When conscience is awakened, and a storm raised, nothing will turn it into a calm but parting with the sin that caused the disturbance. (Matthew Henry, Matthew Henry’s Concise Commentary on the Whole Bible, 837)
The methods people use to try and blot out life’s problems are many and varied. Virtually anything that can distract will suffice, at least for the time being. And that is precisely the problem—’for the time being’ always runs out with an ultimate day of reckoning at the end of it. (Paul Mackrell, Opening Up Jonah, 30)
- The strangely-packaged grace God provided.
(v. 17 | Gen. 1:1; 1 Chr. 29:11 ; Ps. 62:11 ; Mat. 19:26 ; Rom. 2:4; 5:8; Eph. 2:8-9; Col. 1:16)
The whale swallowing Jonah wasn’t meant as a punishment from God, it was God saving him from drowning. So it was actually provision to give him a second chance. The whale itself was the start of Jonah’s second chance. (Phil Vischer, Jonah: A VeggieTales Movie, Behind the Scenes disc 2, 00:02:59-00:03:18)
Conclusion… How might we be challenged from all this? By realizing that…
A. Running from a God that’s everywhere inevitably gets you nowhere.
(Job 34:21; Psalm 139:7-10; Proverbs 15:3; Jeremiah 23:24; Colossians 1:17; Hebrews 4:13)
God is both too holy and too loving to either destroy Jonah or to allow Jonah to remain as he is, and God is also too holy and too loving to allow us to remain as we are. (Tim Keller, The Prodigal Prophet, 132)
Obeying the will of God is as important to God’s servant as it is to the people His servants minister to. It’s in obeying the will of God that we find our spiritual nourishment (John 4:34), enlightenment (7:17), and enablement (Heb. 13:21). To Jesus, the will of God was food that satisfied Him; to Jonah, the will of God was medicine that choked him. (Warren Wiersbe, Be Amazed, 82)
B. Our regard for those far from God often reflects our proximity to either Jonah or Jesus.
(Prov. 24:17; Ez. 18:32; Matthew 5:44; Luke 5:32; 6:27; 15:7, 10; Acts 10:34; 17:30; 12:3; 12:14; 12:20; 1 Peter 3:9)
We think that we do well to be angry with the rebellious, and so we prove ourselves to be more like Jonah than Jesus. (Charles Spurgeon, Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit Volume 33, Sermon on 2 Pet. 3:15)
To refuse to preach the possibility of divine mercy to one’s enemies, no matter how malicious they may be, is simply too narrow a view of God’s love. (Douglas Stuart, Word Biblical Themes: Hosea-Jonah, 90)
Sin is stupifying, and we are to take heed lest at any time our hearts are hardened by the deceitfulness of it. (Matthew Henry, Matthew Henry’s Concise Commentary on the Whole Bible, 837)
C. While not all storms are the result of sin, sin always invites an eventual storm.
(Deut. 11:17; Num. 16:30-34; 32:23; Prov. 28:13; Is. 65; Rom. 6:23; 1 Cor. 6:9-10; James 1:15; 5:17)
You can be rebelling against God and still have a false sense of security that includes a good night’s sleep. (Warren Wiersbe, Be Amazed, 83)
Gospel Application…
Jesus is in the business of reaching his enemies in order to make them his family.
(Luke 23:34; John 3:16; Rom. 5:8-10; 10:9; Ephesians 2:8-9; Titus 2:11-14; 3:5; 2 Peter 3:9)
Jonah went into the depths of the sea in order to save the sailors, but Jesus went into the depths of death and separation from God—hell itself—in order to save Jonah. Jonah is crushed under the weight of the “waves and breakers” (verse 3) of God’s “waters” (verse 5), but Jesus was buried under the waves and billows of God’s wrath. Jonah said he was in Sheol and driven from God’s sight. The Apostles’ Creed says that, for our sake, Jesus “descended into hell.” (Tim Keller, The Prodigal Prophet, 210)
Spiritual Challenge Questions…
Reflect on these questions in your time with the Lord this week, or discuss with a Christian family member or Life Group.
- Have you ever had a wrong attitude about God’s will because you thought what God wanted was impossible? If so, what was the thing that seemed impossible to you?
- Have you ever experienced a point in your life were you felt close to turning in your resignation to God? Why? What circumstances surrounded it? What did you learn from the experience?
- Jonah seemed to have a “take it or leave it” attitude toward the Word of the Lord. Which portions of the Word of God (particular passages or topics) have you been tempted to discard?
- Have you ever found yourself running from God or pushing against his clear plan? What was that like? How did God chasten you?
Quotes to note…
IF you’re dying to know whether Jonah was really swallowed by a great fish (whale or otherwise) check out these links for some great insights!
https://www.gotquestions.org/Jonah-whale.html
https://orthochristian.com/86461.html
The book is often treated as an allegory or myth, but there is little reason to treat it any differently from the way in which the book itself is presented to us—as sober history. Certainly that is how the Lord himself took it (Matt. 12:40). (Paul Mackrell, Opening Up Jonah, 10)
God has many ways of bringing to light hidden sins and sinners, and making manifest that folly which was thought to be hid from the eyes of all living. (Matthew Henry, Matthew Henry’s Concise Commentary on the Whole Bible, 837)
What a picture of one who has taken the first wrong step, and, though discipline has begun, is sleeping on in self-complacency, utterly unconscious of the fact that the hand of the Lord has been stretched out against him! This is the hardening through the deceitfulness of sin, concerning which the apostle warns us. (H.A. Ironside, Notes on the History of Jonah, 12)
Nineveh was in trouble, and God wanted his prophet to go there and preach as a means of helping, not harming, the Assyrians. (Douglas Stuart, Word Biblical Themes: Hosea-Jonah, 89)
The narrow view of God’s love is a dangerous one, because it keeps people from being loved by God’s people, and leads to discrimination against people on the sorts of bigoted grounds that have been a shame to societies wherever they have surfaced. (Douglas Stuart, Word Biblical Themes: Hosea-Jonah, 92)
God was no longer speaking to Jonah through His Word; He was speaking to him through His works: the sea, the wind, the rain, the thunder, and even the great fish. Everything in nature obeyed God except His servant! God even spoke to Jonah through the heathen sailors (vv. 6, 8, 10) who didn’t know Jehovah. It’s a sad thing when a servant of God is rebuked by pagans. (Warren Wiersbe, Be Amazed, 84)
You would have thought Jonah ought to have known that nobody can ever escape from God. Indeed he did know it. Not only would he have been familiar with Psalm 139, but telling the sailors about fearing the Lord, the God of heaven who has made the sea and the dry land in verse 9 shows that at one level he believed it. But sin warps the thinking. What he knew in his head was distorted by a mind set on disobedience. (Paul Mackrell, Opening Up Jonah, 21)
When Jesus teaches that if we do not forgive those who sin against us, our sins will not be forgiven by God, he does not mean God’s ability to forgive depends upon ours, or that humans can manipulate God to forgive them merely by being forgiving of others. Rather Jesus’ words must be understood as a reminder that repentance is proved in part by forgiveness. (Douglas Stuart, Word Biblical Themes: Hosea-Jonah, 96)