Through the Bible - Jonah

Now the word of the Lord came unto Jonah, the son of Amittai, saying, Arise and go to Nineveh, that great city, and cry against it; for their wickedness is come up before me. But Jonah rose up to flee unto Tarshish from the presence of the Lord... 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.

A disobedient prophet, a city that should have burned, and a God whose heart is nothing like our own.

A True Story, Not a Myth

How many of you read the book of Jonah over the last couple of weeks? This is one of my favorites—an awesome, powerful story. Yet over the years many liberal Christians have said this is just a myth, that it didn't really happen. It always bothers me when I hear that about the Bible. The same kind of theologians today say the creation account in Genesis is just a myth. I don't think so. Any worldview has to answer the question, Where do we come from?—and Christianity is the only one that gives a good answer for the origin of life.

Notice what verse 17 says before we even begin: "Now the Lord had prepared a great fish to swallow up Jonah." God made this fish specifically for the work of swallowing Jonah, because Jonah was being disobedient. Maybe these fish still exist today—who knows? All I know is that God prepared this one to swallow Jonah.

A Historical Man, Confirmed by Jesus

Jonah was a man who actually lived, in the early part of the 8th century B.C. His name is mentioned in 2 Kings 14 as the son of Amittai. But Jesus also speaks of him. In Matthew 12, when the scribes and Pharisees sought a sign, Jesus said no sign would be given except the sign of the prophet Jonah—"as Jonah was three days and three nights in the whale's belly, so shall the Son of man be." He added that the men of Nineveh would rise in judgment against that generation, for they repented at the preaching of Jonah.

In Mark 8, the Pharisees again sought a sign, and Jesus sighed deeply and said no sign would be given. In Luke 11 He says, "As Jonah was a sign unto the Ninevites, so shall also the Son of man be to this generation." Note that—Jonah himself, not just his words, was a sign to Nineveh. This is a factual event that took place in the 8th century B.C.

The First Commission and Jonah's Flight

The book divides into two sections: the first commission of Jonah and the second commission. At first Jonah did not obey, but thankfully God spoke to him again. Jonah 3:1 says, "The word of the Lord came unto Jonah the second time." How many of you are thankful that God sometimes speaks twice? Often we just don't listen the first time. Our flesh is rebellious; we were formerly sons and daughters of disobedience, and when we walk in the flesh, we disobey God.

God told Jonah to arise and go to Nineveh and cry against it. Now Jonah lived in the northern part of Israel, in the territory of Zebulun, not far from Nazareth. The northern ten tribes would one day be destroyed by Assyria—and the capital of Assyria was Nineveh. So God told one of His prophets to go to the capital city of his nation's greatest enemy. We'll see Jonah's reasoning in chapter 4.

Did Jonah obey? Verse 3: "But Jonah rose up to flee unto Tarshish from the presence of the Lord." That is complete futility. As David asks in Psalm 139, "Where can I go from your presence?" Yet Jonah went down to Joppa and found a ship going to Tarshish. Anytime you try to run from the Lord, I guarantee you'll find a ship going the direction you want. If you're being tempted toward sin, the enemy will have a hook waiting for you to bite on. At least we can credit Jonah for paying the fare—twice in verse 3 we're told he sought to flee from the presence of the Lord.

The Storm and the Sovereignty of God

Then the Lord sent out a great wind, and there was a mighty tempest. Here we begin to see God's sovereignty: He gives the man His call, the man disobeys, and the sovereign hand of God comes in. Tarshish was to the west—some say Spain, some the British Isles—but Nineveh was to the east. Jonah was going the wrong direction, and God sent the storm.

The mariners were afraid and cried every man to his god, throwing cargo overboard to lighten the ship. But Jonah had gone down into the ship and lay fast asleep. The shipmaster woke him: "Arise, call upon thy God." Then they cast lots to find out whose fault this was, and the lot fell on Jonah. The Psalms tell us the lot is cast in the lap, but its decision is of the Lord. God will always single out the problem. If you pray, "Search me, O Lord, and show me if there be any wicked way in me," He will reveal it. The question is whether we're willing to cast it off the boat.

Cast Into the Sea

They asked Jonah his occupation and country, and he said, "I am an Hebrew; and I fear the Lord, the God of heaven, which hath made the sea and the dry land." The men were exceedingly afraid, because they knew he had fled from the presence of the Lord—he had told them. When they asked what to do, Jonah said, "Take me up, and cast me forth into the sea; so shall the sea be calm unto you: for I know that for my sake this great tempest is upon you."

Notice the faithfulness of these men. They didn't simply throw him overboard; they rowed hard to bring the ship to land, but they could not. Finally they cried out, "We beseech thee, O Lord, let us not perish for this man's life, and lay not upon us innocent blood." These pagan Gentiles, who had served false gods, now cried out to the true Lord. They took Jonah and cast him into the sea, and the sea ceased from her raging. Then "the men feared the Lord exceedingly, and offered a sacrifice unto the Lord, and made vows." A complete transformation.

A Fish That Obeyed

In my mind's eye, I see Jonah bobbing calmly in the water while the men worship, and then something appears off in the distance. The Lord had prepared a great fish to swallow Jonah, and he was in its belly three days and three nights. What blows my mind is that God's prophet disobeyed, but an animal obeyed Him. Isaiah says, "The ox knoweth his owner, and the ass his master's crib: but my people doth not know." God told Jonah, "Go to Nineveh"—and he said no. God told the fish, "Swallow that man—don't chew"—and it obeyed.

In the belly of the fish, Jonah finally prayed: "I cried by reason of mine affliction unto the Lord, and he heard me; out of the belly of hell cried I... When my soul fainted within me I remembered the Lord... Salvation is of the Lord." It took three days and three nights to bring him to that point. Once he came to the end of himself and called on the Lord who is his salvation, "the Lord spake unto the fish, and it vomited out Jonah upon the dry land."

Reaping What We Sow

So chapters 1 and 2 give us the commission of Jonah, with his disobedience to the first call. God brought judgment in the form of a storm and a fish, and that fish was God's avenue to get Jonah to do what He wanted. God allows such things in our lives to bring us to the place where we will obey Him. Paul tells us in Galatians, "Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap." If you sow to the flesh, you reap corruption.

God is sovereign—that is clear—but the thing we learn about Him is that He knows all and He permits. He allows us to go our own direction, but we reap the consequences. Jonah was thrown overboard and swallowed, yet still the Lord was gracious. He didn't let the fish chew; He waited for Jonah to turn. We see this in Jacob, Abraham, Peter—God allows us to go our own way until, as Psalm 107 says, we come to the end of ourselves and cry out. Like the father in the parable of the prodigal son, He waits every day for us to come home.

The Second Commission and the City of Nineveh

The word of the Lord came to Jonah a second time, and this time "Jonah arose, and went unto Nineveh, according to the word of the Lord." Nineveh was "an exceeding great city of three days' journey"—not three days away, but so large it took three days to walk across.

This was a city utterly set against God. The Assyrians perfected torture; they were the ones who began crucifixion. When they captured a people, they brought the strongest back to Nineveh to terrorize the nations. They built pyramids of skulls outside the city as warnings. They practiced flaying, scraping the skin off living people. This was a horrible city whose wickedness rose up to God.

A Sign Walking Into the City

Luke's gospel tells us Jonah was a sign to the people. One of the chief gods of Nineveh was Dagon—half fish, half man. And here comes a man freshly vomited out of a fish onto their shores. After three days in those digestive juices, it's very likely Jonah was stripped of his hair, his skin bleached white. He walks into the city hairless and bleached, and his entire message is, "Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown." That's all. He was himself a sign to the people.

How did they react to this lunatic? "So the people of Nineveh believed God"—circle that in your Bibles—"and proclaimed a fast, and put on sackcloth, from the greatest of them even to the least of them." Consider the greatness of their repentance. The king arose from his throne, laid aside his royal robe, covered himself with sackcloth, and sat in ashes. He decreed that neither man nor beast should taste anything, that all should be covered with sackcloth and cry mightily unto God, and that "they turn every one from his evil way."

This was heartfelt repentance, not in word only—they put away their wicked deeds. The king said, "Who can tell if God will turn and repent?" The word is better translated relent. 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."

Jonah's Anger at God's Mercy

You would think the prophet would rejoice—this is the greatest revival of all time, the most wicked city completely repenting. But Jonah 4:1 says, "It displeased Jonah exceedingly, and he was very angry." I love this guy. He prayed, "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."

The whole reason he fled was that he was afraid this might happen. He didn't want Nineveh to repent—they were the great enemy of his nation. This is a man filled with patriotism. That's likely why he preached such a small message and never even said the word "repent." He wanted them judged. He prayed, "Take, I beseech thee, my life from me; for it is better for me to die than to live." I pray none of you ever pray that prayer. And the Lord asked, "Doest thou well to be angry?"

The Gourd, the Worm, and the Wind

Jonah went out and sat east of the city, made himself a booth, and waited to see it destroyed. He wanted it so badly that he stayed for the entire forty days, watching. And the Lord God prepared a gourd to grow over him for shade—again, the sovereignty of God—and Jonah was exceedingly glad of the gourd. He's a fair-weather follower.

But God prepared a worm that smote the gourd so it withered, and then a vehement east wind, and the sun beat on his head until he fainted and again wished to die. Look at the rollercoaster: upset that the city wasn't destroyed, glad for the gourd, then angry when it died. God asked again, "Doest thou well to be angry for the gourd?" And Jonah answered, "I do well to be angry, even unto death."

Then the Lord said, "Thou hast had pity on the gourd, for the which thou hast not laboured, neither madest it grow... 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?" God says: you didn't make that gourd grow, yet you grieve it. I created this city; I gave it grace. There are thousands there who can't tell their right hand from their left—a Hebrew way of saying thousands of innocent children—and much cattle, and you just want it to go up in flames.

Where Are We in the Story?

The book ends right there. Why? Paul tells us in 1 Corinthians 10 that these things were written for our instruction, as examples. This story makes us introspective. Who are we in it? Do we mirror the heart of God, who gives grace even to wicked Gentiles? Or are we like Jonah, who would rather see them burn? Are we like the king who repents at the word of the Lord, or like the men on the boat who recognized the hand of God and did whatever it took to receive His blessing?

I can see why the enemy has sought to make people doubt this story—it challenges every one of us at the core. It's my prayer that I would see the heart of God in and through my life as I follow Him. But the heart of God is totally different from man's. As we'll see soon in Micah, God is not a man. Isaiah 55 tells us His ways are higher than ours and His thoughts beyond our finding out. And I'm thankful He works differently than we do, because if we had the power, we'd destroy everyone we perceived as our enemies.

The Heart of God Toward Enemies

Think of James and John, who when a Samaritan village rejected Jesus asked, "Lord, wilt thou that we command fire to come down?" But Jesus, in the Sermon on the Mount, tells us to rejoice when persecuted, and to "pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you." That is the heart of our Lord, set in powerful contrast to the heart of man—even a godly man, a prophet, a Hebrew of the Hebrews. God has a global focus; He reached out to the most wicked city on earth and extended grace.

The sobering reminder is this: these events took place around 780 to 760 B.C. About a century later, these same Assyrians turned against the Lord and destroyed the northern ten tribes, and God ultimately judged them for their wickedness. But on this day, God gave them grace. He relented because they repented. And He has done the same in my life and yours.

Think of Saul of Tarsus, who made havoc of the church (Acts 8). I guarantee 99.9% of the Christians of that day were praying God would kill him—and in a sense God did, for Saul became the apostle Paul. But no one was praying for his salvation; they wanted fire poured out on him. That's a check for my heart and yours. There are people in our lives who cut us off on the freeway or spitefully use us at work, and when we think of them we go, "Lord, just destroy them." But God has a different heart for them—and He desires that we would as well.

Closing Prayer

God, I thank You for the reminder of this book—that You don't see as we see, and that Your heart is so different from ours. I pray, Lord, that You would continue to transform us, that we would see as You see and love as You love. Greater love has no one than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends; and yet You demonstrated Your love toward us, that while we were yet sinners, while we were yet Your enemies, You died for us. Lord, I pray You would impart that heart to each and every one of us as we walk with You. We ask it in Jesus' name. Amen.