“The word of the Lord came to Jonah son of Amittai: “Go to the great city of
Nineveh and preach against it, because its wickedness has come up before me.”
But Jonah ran away from the Lord and headed for Tarshish”. Jonah 1:1-3
The reason we are moving this morning from a short series on the church to a short series in Jonah is because the main focus of this old testament book is a missionary one.
Hopefully we have gleaned from our series on the church that one of the key focuses of the church should also be a missionary focus.
And so, this morning is not about deviation, it’s really about intensification.
What I mean by ‘mission’ is the activity of the church whereby it moves outwards from itself with a message of hope, and life and love that comes from a just and righteous and holy God.
The aim of mission is repentance from sin and faith in Jesus, who alone can take away the offence of sin and establish a new relationship with God for ever. It’s called the gospel. This is the main goal of mission and it is also the goal of this book of Jonah.
Historicity
However, hanging over the narrative of Jonah is a sort of mythical haze, and we need to address that at the outset otherwise there’ll be no reason for any of us to apply the book to real life missions, and the aim of these sermons will then be nullified.
People’s default understanding of the Jonah account is that it’s a type of fable or an ancient myth. In some Christian circles, people might go a bit further and call it a parable – a fictional story with a spiritual meaning.
But I want to show you that we’re not dealing with a myth or fable here, and we’re not dealing with parable either, we’re dealing with an historical account.
Are there good reasons to think that the passage in question is a real history? After all, the bible does employ metaphor and poetry and parable.
In verse 1 of Jonah 1 we’re introduced to the main character Jonah and we’re given his full name – Jonah son of Ammittai. We know that the book of Jonah includes details of real places and real circumstances around the 8th century BC. In the biblical book of 2 Kings which is a record of Jewish histories, in the 14th chapter, we’re also introduced to a man called Jonah son of Ammitai (v.25).
The section of the histories in which we find Jonah mentioned accords with the period of history found in the book of Jonah, and so there’s no reason to doubt that the two passages are speaking about the same person. Therefore, the record of Jewish history bears witness to the realness of Jonah the man.
Secondly, in Chapter 1, verse 2 of Jonah, God tells Jonah to go to the great city of Nineveh. In the bible there are 17 references to Nineveh (not including those in Jonah). The last of these references is found in the words of Jesus. He talks about the real judgement day of God to come, and he says that on that day the men of Nineveh will stand up to condemn the generation that in Jesus’ day were rejecting him. So, Jesus assumed the historicity of the city of Nineveh.
And then lastly, and most significantly because it addresses the part of the story detailing a fish and Jonah being vomited up on to dry land after 3 days, there were Pharisees in Jesus’ day asking him for a sign; the reason they were asking for a sign is because they didn’t have the faith to believe that he was who he said he was – the Son of God.
Jesus replied to them saying,
‘a wicked and adulterous generation asks for a sign! But none will be given it except the sign of the prophet Jonah’
And then he said this,
‘For as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of a huge fish, so the Son of Man will be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth’ (Matthew 12:38-40).
The sign Jesus was going to give them was his own resurrection from the dead, and he called it the ‘sign of Jonah’.
Now which is more believable: that Jonah was swallowed by a huge fish and lived there 3 days and 3 nights and then was spat out on dry land, or that Jesus was swallowed by the grave in death and stayed there 3 days and 3 nights and then raised himself back to life?
The answer is they are equally implausible from a human stand point, and they are both completely plausible from a God standpoint. Therefore, Jesus was saying to the Jews of his day, if you believe in the historicity of the account of Jonah, you’ll believe in me when you see me raised from the dead.
And this morning he’s saying to us, ‘if you believe in the historicity of my resurrection’ – and by the way if you don’t then you’re not saved; Romans 10:9 says ‘If you declare with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord”, and believe in your heart God raised him from the dead, you will be saved’ – ‘Jesus is saying, if you believe I was raised from the dead, then just as I was raised from the grave, so Jonah was spat out on dry land by a huge fish.
Both events really happened. Jesus assumed the historicity of the account of Jonah calling his own resurrection the ‘sign of Jonah’.
So, I have every confidence this morning that the account of Jonah, in its fulness, is an historical account; recording events that really happened, even the bits that are hard to believe.
Jonah’s message
Turning then to chapter 1. In the first 2 verses Jonah is given his missionary marching orders by none other than God himself: ‘The word of the Lord came to Jonah son of Amittai: “Go to the great city of Nineveh and preach against it, because its wickedness has come up before me”.
The first thing to note is that Nineveh was a ‘great city’ in Jonah’s day. It was the capital city of the empire of Assyria – an empire that was growing in power and was posing a significant threat to Israel. It was also an ancient city and one that had prospered because of its situation – being as it was on the banks of the river Tigris.
As a measure, Chapter 3 verse 3, says it took 3 days to go through that city. And chapter 4 verse 11 says there were more than 120,000 people living there. So by ancient standards, Nineveh was a very great city.
Jonah on the other hand was an Israelite from the town of Gath Hepher (2 Kings 14), a fairly insignificant town situated in the northern Galilean region of Israel.
Now remember that God had not revealed himself to any other nation on earth like he had to the Israelites. By the time Jonah was on the scene, Israel had been interacting with their God in a personal way for the best part of 700 years, but none of the other nations had ever encountered him in that way.
And now the word of the Lord had come to Jonah telling him to leave his home town in Israel and head out to the capital city of a powerful foreign nation - a journey that would have taken him at least 10 days on foot – and to preach to it. In fact, specifically, to preach against it.
The best indicator we have of the content of Jonah’s message is found in chapter 3 verse 4, ‘Jonah began by going a day’s journey into the city, proclaiming, “Forty more days and Nineveh will be overthrown”.
There’s no suggestion here that God would amass military forces against the city, it sounds much more like a Sodom and Gomorrah type judgment is pending. It sounds like God is going to come and smite the city after 40 days. Chapter 4 verse 11 sounds like God’s compassion extends to all 120,000 inhabitants, as though his judgement was originally intended to land on them all and wipe out the whole of the city in one fail swoop.
Also notice that the occasion for the judgement that God intends to bring on that city is their ‘wickedness’. God sees the wickedness of the Ninevites; he sees their sins and rebellion. He had evidently taken personal offence at the thoughts, and the attitudes, and behaviours and speech that he had witnessed in that city.
There’s something really important here. We might be tempted to think that God has his people and he can tell them what to do; if they rebel against him then he has a right to be angry with them. But to think that God would have nothing to do with some people and still hold them accountable for their behaviour, well that sounds unfair.
The other notion that might enter our minds in the relativistic world we live in is that each person is free to determine for themselves what is right and wrong.
Pride week is deemed a good thing in our current social environment for example. It wouldn’t have been 100 years ago, but now everybody puts out their rainbow flags. And if we are free to determine right and wrong, then God has no part to play in judging us for that.
The book of Jonah puts paid to both these ideas. God is God over all his creation. He made all people to reflect his glory and honour his name (Isaiah 43:7), and as a just, holy and right God he can hold all his creatures to account for behaviour, attitudes, desire and thoughts that fall short of his glory; that rebel against the truth about who he is; things that he has made plain to all of us.
‘For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened…although they know [in their inner beings] that those who do such things deserve death, they not only continue to do these very things but also approve of those who practice them’, that’s Romans 1:21 & 32.
We might think we live in a relativistic world where we are free to do as we like, think as we like, speak as we like, desire as we like (so long as we’re not hurting anybody else) and God can’t say anything about it, but the fact is he does and he will have something to say about it; and something to do about it too. The Ninevites were not worse than we are as a society, they stand for all societies in all ages at all times. They are the archetypal society.
The bible says the wages of sin is death. You work for your wages and if your works are sin then your wages are death – eternal death. That’s for everybody; for all of humanity. If we fall short of God’s glory; if we don’t make his fame our number one pursuit in life then we’re rebels. Rebels are traitors - they’re treasonous – and they deserve punishment. So it was for Nineveh and so it is for all of us. ‘God is angry with the wicked every day’, Psalm 7:11 (KJV) says, and we shouldn’t think we’ll escape because we don’t have anything to do with God. God will hold the whole world accountable Romans 3 says.
So that’s why Nineveh was in the firing line; their wickedness had come up before God and he was fuming with that city for their rebellion against him. So much so that he was about annihilate them from existence. And that’s meant to be a sobering message to us all.
Jonah’s job was to take the message from God to the Ninehvites telling them that 40 days from now God would overthrow the city for their wickedness, that’s what ‘preach against it’ means in verse 2.
God is so merciful
But why 40 days? If God was so hot with fury against that city, then why wait 40 days? The answer to that question is replete in the old testament with a phrase I love to recite and pray, it goes like this: ‘The Lord is a compassionate God, slow to anger and abounding in love’. And Jonah knows it’s true of the Lord because he tells him so in chapter 4 and verse 2.
The reason God delays 40 days with his judgment is because he’s looking for their repentance. He wants the Ninevites to own their sin. He wants them to cry out to the one true and living God to have mercy and to forgive them their sins. He want’s them to come to their senses and seek him before it’s too late. He wants them to return to him and delight in him in the way he made them - and all people - to delight in him. He’s being compassionate. He’s being merciful. He’s being slow with his righteous, holy and just anger, he’s abounding in love towards them – love they don’t deserve.
Has it ever occurred to you that every morning we wake up alive we’re enjoying God’s goodness to us? He hasn’t damned us. He hasn’t thrown us into the lake of fire for the sins we’ve committed. He preserved me whilst I was unconscious last night. He kept my lungs inflating and deflating; he kept my heart beating; my brain functioning. He hasn’t treated us as our sins deserve.
He’s so compassionate; so long suffering with us.
Has it ever occurred to you why you keep waking up every day? He’s telling you ‘40 days and then I’m going to overthrow your life, so repent; so turn to me and I will have compassion on you’. He’s giving you time to come to him.
So, even in his pent-up anger, he’s kind to Nineveh. Even in his anger he’s going to send his messenger to them to graciously give them advance warning that they might avoid his wrath and so be saved.
Jonah on the run
All of which is amazing, but then we have verse 3: ‘But Jonah ran away from the Lord and headed for Tarshish’.
Jonah is God’s servant; he’s a servant with a divine calling and tasking, and now we find that the very person God has chosen to deliver his gracious message to Nineveh has done a runner.
In fact, Jonah had headed off for Tarshish, which in all likelihood was the furthest destination any ship leaving Israel’s shores would have gone in that day. Tarshish was probably the last Mediterranean port before the stretch of Gibraltar between Spain and Morocco.
In other words, Jonah was not just running away a bit, he was running away as far as he could; he really didn’t want this assignment. And it’s worth asking why, because so much of this book is taken up with bringing Jonah back to finish the work he’s been assigned to do. We should want to know why he was so averse to it – I think that will shed some light on our own inclinations too.
Well there’s no definitive reason given in the text. He might have been scared; or he might have been disinclined to make the long journey. He might have thought that no other nation deserved a message from God except his own.
But I think there may be a more subtle reason underpinning Jonah’s actions. In the years preceding Jonah, God had raised up the prophet Hosea, and Hosea had been prophesying some disturbing things about the future of Israel. Specifically, on quite a few occasions, Hosea had prophesied like this:
‘Ephraim will eat unclean food in Assyria’ (Hosea 9:3; 10:6; 11:5).
So, in Jonah’s mind Assyria is a tool in the hand of God with which to judge his own people; his own country. Jonah reasons to himself, I think, ‘if God destroys the capital city of Assyria, Nineveh, then will not the might of Assyria be undone, and will I not have saved my own country and my own people from the doom God has decreed to bring on them by the hand of the Assyrians’.
And then he thinks where would take him at least 40 days out of the way, and so ensure God’s judgement would come to pass on Nineveh, so he chooses to run away to the furthest out-post of the middle east, Tarshish, and thus ensure the future of his own people.
That’s what I think motivated his actions in verse 3. He wanted Nineveh annihilated because the destruction of Nineveh was the means by which he could ensure that his own people didn’t fall under God’s intended judgment.
Here’s how Jonah himself put it after the Lord had relented from his anger against Nineveh. Chapter 4, verse 2, ‘Isn’t this what I said, Lord, when I was still at home? That is what I tried to forestall by fleeing to Tarshish. I knew that you…are a God who relents from sending calamity’.
With his plan formulated, Jonah made the two-day journey to the port of Joppa we’re told, and paid the fare to Tarshish in order to flee from the Lord and the task he had been given to do.
Jonah was reading the circumstantial landscape. He was looking at the providential nature of the events that were transpiring. He was assessing everything and factoring in what he knew about God. And when he weighed everything up, he thought his own idea was better than God’s idea. He thought his plan was the best course of action, and he decided to disobey the Word of the Lord.
Jonah’s example teaches us a crucial lesson about how providence must never be elevated above the word of God. There are at least two things about providence that means it must always play second fiddle to the revelation of God in his word in influencing our decision making.
The first is that providence is always subject to our interpretation of it and that interpretation can never be wholly trusted because of our own fallibility.
And the second is that providence, in God’s purposes, may be either a Godly test or a Godly opportunity.
In other words, there are providences that the Lord wants us to respond to in positive way, but there are also those he’s using to test us to see if we will respond in a negative way. The lesson here is that if God has told us to do something in his word, and providence presents an alternative course of action, obedience to his revealed will - in his word - is always the way he wants us to go.
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