Rejecting the Call

Jonah 4

Welcome! Today we conclude our series on the book of Jonah. Let me start with a quick summary of where we have been. Jonah, a prophet of the Lord, is called by God to go to Nineveh, the capital of the Assyrian empire, because, God says, “their wickedness” has come up before Me. Jonah, for reasons not yet given in the book, refuses and instead goes in the opposite direction, towards Tarshish, obtaining passage on a ship with non-Jewish sailors to do so. Along the way, the Lord sends a terrible storm on the ship, causing the sailors to cry out to their false gods. Jonah, asleep through all this, is wakened by the captain who calls on him to cry out to his god. The sailors, who already have heard that Jonah is fleeing his god, learn that this god is the Lord who made the sea and the land, and becoming terrified, ask Jonah what they should do. Jonah tells them to throw him into the sea, but they refuse to do so, instead trying to row back to land. The storm becomes even more terrible, and so, feeling that they have no other options, the sailors do throw him in, and the sea does in fact grow calm. The sailors then give thanks to Jonah’s god and even make vows to him. God then sends a huge fish or whale to swallow Jonah, and in this fish he remains for 3 days. Jonah then prays to the Lord, a prayer that is filled with thanks for saving him (seemingly from drowning through the provision of the fish), but does not show any real repentance at all. At any rate, God then commands the fish to spew out Jonah onto dry land, and, unlike Jonah, it obeys.

Obeying the Call

Jonah 3

I found out on Thursday that Carl’s oral surgery was more extensive than he had expected and that he wouldn’t be talking comfortably for a while. When Mimi asked if I could give the message today in his place, she apologized for the short notice, but I reassured her later that it was not the shortest notice that I have received. One time a few years ago in Nepal, I was sitting in church when the leader announced, “Brother Tim will be giving the message today. Let’s pray for him as he comes up.” I had the whole time during his prayer to think about what I would say.

Anyway, I have really enjoyed Carl’s teaching and appreciate his insights into the Word. I hope I can do justice to the flow of what he has been sharing from the book of Jonah. As he said, it is such a familiar story to those us who grew up hearing it in Sunday School and at home that we easily miss the impact that it would have had on people in Jonah’s day, hearing it for the first time. The audacity of Jonah, trying to run away from the Lord, heading toward Tarshish, as far away from Nineveh as he could go. The desperate struggle in the storm, with the only solution being to throw Jonah overboard to a certain death. God’s dramatic provision of the great fish to swallow Jonah and preserve his life. Last Sunday we considered Jonah’s prayer from inside the fish, his acknowledgement of God’s power and salvation, an expression of his willingness to submit to God, but not really an admission of any wrongdoing or a sincere change of heart.

Returning to the Call

Jonah 1:17-2:9

Welcome! Today we continue our exploration of the fascinating book of Jonah. Because it is a relatively short book, I want to start today by reading last week’s passage. But first, let me give you a quick reminder of the setting; Jonah takes place between 793 and 758 BC, around the time of King Jeroboam son of Jehoash, king of Israel (as verified by 2 Kings 14:23-25 which mentions Jonah in the context of this king’s reign). Now, Jonah begins in Israel, but tries to flee to Tarshish, about 2500 miles west of Israel. Jonah was supposed to go to Nineveh, the capital of the Assyrian empire; well, Nineveh is about 600 miles east of Israel. Nineveh wasn’t a Jewish settlement but instead a huge thoroughly non-Jewish city filled with people (Assyrians) who hated Israel and for many years had wanted to destroy or capture its people. Assyria was a powerful force to be reckoned with. Anyway, here is what we read last week:

Fleeing the Call

Jonah 1:1-16

Welcome! Today we begin a new series on the book of Jonah. For many people, the story of Jonah, at least the part about the whale, or more accurately, big fish, is one of the most familiar stories in the Bible, right up there with Adam and Eve and the serpent, Noah and the ark, and the shepherds and the angels at the birth of Jesus. If you had a Christian upbringing, you were probably told this story countless times in Sunday school, and perhaps had it read to you as a toddler on multiple occasions by your parents. Unfortunately, this kind of familiarity sometimes makes it harder for us to really look at the account carefully, with fresh eyes. The reality is that, as a literary work, Jonah is a masterful tale, full of surprising twists and turns. It is written so that the events in the story really do come as surprises; it is only because of our over-familiarity of the work that we miss this. A second problem some of you may have with this work is that the book of Jonah is a pinpoint of frequent attacks on the Bible. You have probably heard people say, “Come on, how can a whale swallow a person, and how could such a person live?” These attacks may cause you to question whether Jonah is true. It is possible that Jonah is a fictitious account, just as it is possible that Job and Ruth and Esther are fictitious accounts, but I don’t think so, for multiple reasons.