A few weeks ago I had a dream in which I found myself arriving in prison. I was the typical prisoner claiming my innocence, saying I’d been framed. I felt that I was there undeservingly due to a succession of circumstances beyond my control but in the eyes of the court I was guilty so that’s where I found myself. In truth I deserved to be in prison but I really had no concept of my guilt at all. It was only after a while of being in prison that I realised I was in the wrong and then suddenly in my dream I escaped!In a second dream not long after, there was a giant tree in our garden. My solution was an elaborate scheme to relocate the tree to another place in the garden. It was going to cost about $5,000. While planning it, I came home one day to find that a man I didn’t know had cut it down! This made me angry that someone had destroyed the beautiful tree and ended my great plan. But when I was told that I could sell the wood for about $5,000, I realised I was $10,000 better off than my way.
Today I want to look at the story of Jonah, the man who was told to go east but went west instead, and not because he didn’t hear right! It’s a story that stands out from the other books in the Old Testament – it’s a short story of human frailty, of God’s Grace, of repentance and forgiveness. But it is also filled with miracles and good humour.
This is the first time in the Bible that God showing mercy to a Gentile city. Usually we find God at war on Israel’s behalf, telling Israel to go and completely wipe out the foreign armies and take no prisoners – men, women or children. But in the Book of Jonah, God is revealed like we know in the New Testament – merciful to the Gentiles.
Ninevah first appears in the Bible in Genesis 10. If you remember, one of Noah’s 3 sons was Ham. Ham was the son that Noah placed a curse on. One of Ham’s descendants was a guy called Nimrod. Nimrod was a powerful man, but he was against God. He built several great cities of the ancient world including Babel (which became Babylon), the tower of Babel and Ninevah. Ninevah was an amazing city, the capital of the Assyrian Empire. The main city was about 7km2 but including the suburbs it had about a 100km circumference. The main city walls were 30 metres high (10 stories or more) and were thick enough to have a 3 lane motorway running along the top. There were 1500 towers along the city walls. So it was huge and intimidating and filled with a large population of 120,000 people, a threat to the nations around it and an enemy of Israel. After Jonah, both Nahum and Zephaniah prophesied Ninevah’s destruction. Zephaniah said “He will destroy Assyria and make its great capital Ninevah a desolate wasteland like a wilderness”. Nothing seemed more improbable at the time but in 612BC, Ninevah came to a sudden demise at the hands of the Babylonians and the Medes. If you go to the site of Ninevah today, you will barely find any trace of its existence, it is exactly as the Lord foretold.
Jonah was a prophet from Gath-Hepher who was born about the time of Elijah. Gath-Hepher is about 8km from Nazareth. So Jonah was born sometime after David but before the Israelites had been taken captive by the Babylonians. Some Jewish tradition says that Jonah was actually the Widow’s boy that Elijah had raised back to life, but I couldn’t find the reason why that is thought. The only other mention of Jonah in the Old Testament is in 2 Kings 14:25 where Jonah predicted that Israel would recover lost territories between Hamath and the Dead Sea. There is plenty of reference to Jonah in the New Testament by Jesus. Some scholars think the story of Jonah is just a picture, but Jesus clearly taught it was true. Some scientists think that it is impossible because there is no fish big enough to swallow a man whole and for him to survive that long inside the fish and then be spewed up again alive. Some might assume the fish was a whale, but of course it may not have been. You cannot rely on nature to explain what happened because it was a miracle – a supernatural event.
Telling Jonah to go to Ninevah was a very big ask from God! It definitely looked like a suicide mission. “Go to the great city of Ninevah and give them this announcement from the Lord: I am going to destroy you for your wickedness rises before me; it smells to highest heaven”. Sometimes God may give us a task that is impossible. It was kind of like an asking an Englishman to go to Berlin in the middle of WW2 to tell Hitler that God was about to destroy them. Not on your life thought Jonah. In fact I hope you do destroy them! I’m going the other way thanks very much!!! So at the crossroads of his life, despite all the good things he’d done before, Jonah chose to go his way, the opposite direction to where God was asking him to go. He could argue that the circumstances were overwhelming, that it wasn’t fair of God, that he was afraid, the wrong guy for the job, but in the end he made a bad decision. It is always best to go God’s way. God would have to save Jonah before He could save Ninevah.
The first few verses show us the typical pattern for someone who goes the opposite way to where God has told them…”He went down to the seacoast, to the port of Joppa, where he found a ship leaving for Tarshish. He bought a ticket, went on board and climbed down into the dark hold of the ship to hide there from the Lord”. Jonah was heading in a downward spiral, because now he was in the dark, cut-off in his relationship with God.
Jonah is done with God, but God is not done with Jonah. God is not going to leave Jonah this way! God is actually going to save Jonah but’s he’s going to have to shake him from his sin and it’s not going to be too pleasant. God intervenes with the 1st miracle by causing a storm that threatened to send the boat down to the bottom of the sea. Meanwhile, Jonah is asleep in the dark hold of the ship. How could he be asleep at a time like this? Was it because he had peace like Jesus did when Jesus was asleep in the boat when the storm came? No! I think the reason he was sleeping was because he was escaping from God and he was feeling depressed. Jonah was comfortable in the dark, he felt safe hiding from reality but it was a false peace.
When the captain comes down into the hold of the ship we find out Jonah’s true state. He admits he is running away from God and that it is his fault that the storm has come but he is not prepared to repent and pray for God’s help at this point. It looks noble of him to offer to be thrown into the sea to stop the storm but he is still rebelling. He should have told the sailors to turn the ship around and head back to Joppa so he could start doing what God wanted. The sailors would have done it. But Jonah would rather commit suicide by being thrown into the sea than do what God wants. So the sailors throw him in the sea and the 2nd miracle is that the storm stops immediately. And good comes out of the situation because the sailors then vow to serve the Lord for the rest of their lives. Something people often do when God helps them out of a crisis!
The 3rd miracle is the Lord sends a great fish to swallow Jonah and rescue him from being drowned in the sea. But Jonah is still not saved. Jonah had not reached his lowest point yet. He was like the prodigal son. He was going even further down. It is really sad to watch someone stubbornly hold on to their way. You cannot expect to fight God and win. He will beat you every time. When will you be ready to admit you are wrong and repent?
The 4th miracle was that Jonah survived being in the great fish 3 days and 3 nights. When the Pharisees came to Jesus asking him to give them a miracle, Jesus referred them to this event as the only miracle he would do for them - a future sign of his resurrection from the grave. That Jesus would also survive being in the belly of the earth 3 days and 3 nights.
But for Jonah it took 3 days and nights inside the great fish for him to give in and finally pray. That’s quite a long time to be in the depths of despair before you finally cry out to God, it shows just how stubborn Jonah was. He had been down to the bottom of the ocean and felt rejected and cast off from the Lord, totally separated from the love of God he used to know, totally alone. And Jonah knew that it was because of his sin that he was in prison at the bottom of the ocean. When Jonah stood at the gates of death, he finally came to his senses. “When I had lost all hope, I turned my thoughts once more to the Lord”.
Some of us really stubborn ones have to hit absolute rock bottom before we will start looking up. It’s really crazy isn’t it? But in that moment God’s Grace was there for Jonah as it is for anyone who will look up. “The Lord ordered the fish to spit up Jonah on the beach, and it did.” It was painful, he stunk and he felt sick. He probably was sick! But Jonah was saved. Jonah was thankful to be alive.
Then the Lord spoke to Jonah again. Just because he was saved he wasn’t off the hook. He was saved for a reason, just as we all are. We still have our responsibilities. “Go to that great city, Ninevah and warn them of their doom, as I told you before”. Some parents will punish their children but then they don’t actually make the child do what was asked. Not God! I think there was a moment there when Jonah looked at God just like a child after being punished to see if there was any possibility that he would not really have to go. And God probably just raised an eyebrow. So Jonah makes at least an 800km journey to Ninevah. It could have been further depending on where exactly Jonah got thrown up on dry land. Quite often when we disobey, doing the right thing becomes harder than it was in the 1st place.
Finally Jonah arrives in Ninevah and begins preaching. He’s not really that happy about it. What did he preach? There was no grace in his message whatsoever. The message Jonah gladly gave them was one of their doom – hellfire and brimstone with no escape. I am sure that Jonah reminded the Ninevites of Sodom and Gomorrah. It was really scary stuff. “40 days from now Ninevah will be destroyed”. Where did Jonah get the 40 days from? He made that up! That was what Jonah wanted not what God had said. He gave them pantomime preaching, totally over the top and he didn’t want them to believe it as we shall see later.
Now the 5th and I think greatest miracle. Some might say it was the way Jonah looked after being in the fish, flesh eaten away by acid, stinking, hair fallen out, covered in seaweed. He looked like an alien a creature from another planet. Perhaps they thought he was the only living survivor from Sodom. Maybe they thought he was a god to have come out of the fish. Was it something about him that really freaked them out, or was it something else? What really made them scared? I think it was the overwhelming presence of God, Jonah was just the mouthpiece. When someone is under the conviction of God there is an extreme urgency to get saved! The presence of God was so thick in Ninevah, that the people understood that the threat that Jonah was giving them was real. They could be in Hell in an instant, just like the people of Sodom and Gomorrah. On the very 1st day of Jonah preaching, the people repented and not just a few of them. The entire population of Ninevah! We would celebrate if just one or two people gave their lives to the Lord in one of our meetings. Everybody in the city of Ninevah repented from the King down. They were so scared they stopped their sinning immediately and cried out for God’s mercy. Jesus referred to this event by saying “The men of Ninevah shall arise against this nation at the judgement and condemn you. For when Jonah preached to them, they repented and turned to God from all their evil ways. And now a greater than Jonah is here – and you refuse to believe him”. The time to repent is always immediately on hearing Jesus call. You are taking a great risk if you put it off. The modern church has abandoned this type of preaching but perhaps we should reconsider!
It is amazing (isn’t it?) that as soon as the people repented God abandoned his plans to destroy Ninevah. The threats God makes are real, he will carry them out if we don’t repent. Hell is real and eternal. The Final Judgement will happen. The Sheep will be separated from the Goats. This is the God that many people will face. But if we will repent, he immediately forgives and restores us. God’s threats of judgement are not ultimately for our destruction but to cause us to repent, to change and turn to him. The Lord is not willing that any should perish. Why are you still fighting God? “God so loved the world that he gave his only Son that whosoever (merely) believed in him, shall not perish but have eternal life”. This is the God that we want to know.
In my 1st dream, I was in prison for reasons I did not understand. But finally I realised I deserved to be there. It was only then I escaped. The lesson that the people of Ninevah have to teach us is don’t wait another second if you are not right with God. Sort it out today! Ok, now Jonah has just preached the greatest evangelistic message ever and an entire city has been saved! All his trials have not been in vain. His life has counted for something. He’s a hero. He should be ecstatic, on cloud 9, but is he? No, he is very angry! This was not the outcome he hoped for at all. His heart is not right so he will have to go through yet more pain. This brings me back to my 2nd dream with the big tree that was cut down. That was not my plan and I was very angry about it. I think I can recall several times in my life when God has not acted like I think he should. Because of my perceived loss, I will then go through a period of anger, depression and isolation. After a while, sometimes a very long time because I’m very stubborn, the wisdom of God’s decision will become clear and I will come to terms with it and usually appreciate.
Firstly Jonah complained to the Lord, mainly it seems he was embarrassed that the Lord hadn’t done what Jonah had threatened the people with. He wanted to be proved right. He didn’t want to be laughed at as some crazy old prophet. He felt that the Lord had made him look a fool. He was angry with God and he was behaving like a child. He asked to be killed. He was still suicidal. Did he really think that would cause the Lord to change his mind again and destroy Ninevah, just because he felt sorry for Jonah? Some people will do anything to get their own way! It was good he was being honest but he didn’t appreciate the Lords decision. The Lord asked him a question to try to get him to see reason. The Lord asked Jonah “is it right to be angry about this?” I noticed that Jonah didn’t even answer this question from the Lord. I can remember at Intermediate School being so angry with my teacher that I didn’t speak to her for a whole term, even when she asked me a question directly. Talk about silent treatment. That is how Jonah is treating the Lord now. But notice the Lord doesn’t get angry with him back. He is very compassionate.
So Jonah went and sat sulking on the East side of the city as he waited there to see if anything would happen. He’d said 40 days, so my guess is he waited there 40 days, probably calling for fire from Heaven just like Elijah. He even built a shelter from some leaves and got as comfortable as possible while he waited. He is unbelievably stubborn isn’t he? I can understand Jonah because I’m just like him. The 6th miracle in this story is that when the leaves wilted in the heat, the Lord made a vine grow up quickly to shelter Jonah from the heat. That was very kind of the Lord wasn’t it? Jonah was grateful for the vine. Perhaps he thought that God was finally listening to him and would destroy Ninevah after all.
Once again Jonah’s true colours are revealed when God does the 7th miracle and sends a worm to eat the vine and cause it to die. When the fierce sun comes up in the morning and a hot wind from the east starts blowing, once more he wished to die. “Death is better than this!” Jonah said for the 3rd time. He wanted to die rather than not get his own way. He is either manic depressive or an overgrown child. My bet is the latter. God is the master parent he does not give in to our tantrums.
The Lord asks Jonah “is it right for you to be angry because the plant died?” Jonah feels totally justified in saying “yes!” He feels the Lord is torturing him. Now the Lord points out that Jonah is really just feeling sorry for himself and for no good reason. The Lord has been very kind to Jonah throughout this story. The Lord’s point is why shouldn’t the Lord be kind to whoever he wants to especially those who have never heard of him before?
There are so many lessons in the story of Jonah for us aren’t there? What is God is saying to you today? I think though there is one overriding moral of the story and that is;
There are 2 ways to get what God wants done. Gods Way or Your Way…You Decide!!!
