Answers Bible Curriculum: Lesson 10 - God Sends Jonah

Holy Father, I thank you for blessing us with your word and the lessons that, that are there for us to learn. Most of all, that it teaches us about you and may we this morning, be able to truly get these lessons that are about you and about how we are to respond to you. Lord, we look forward to what you have for us today in Jesus' name. Amen.

All right, we come to this study of, of Jonah and, as we're looking at today, Jonah is believed to be one of those, books in the Bible that rank right up there with, the 1st 8 chapters of the Book of Genesis as far as, as, as being, something that's to not be taken literally. And, yet, as we are gonna be looking at today, I believe we can, we can make a good case for the fact that it should be taken literally. It actually historically was. It was taken literally by Israel and so the ancient Jews accepted it as such.

And also in, in Christianity in the church, for, for many, many, centuries actually, it was taken literally as well. It wasn't until, the, the Enlightenment and, the liberal thinking that came along. Back about 150 years ago, it began or so. That, God's word began to be interpreted in different ways.

And we've covered those, those, different interpretations and so on. but I started with this, thought, question. Is it easier to believe that a fish swallowed a man Or that a whole pagan society would repent after a one-sentence sermon. Because what we have in Jonah is a series of miraculous or interventions by God into, into the world.

And, so there, there are a series of things that we'll be seeing that happen, seeing happen in, in this, but the idea that you could have a prophet come into town with a In, in Hebrew, it's 6 words, 6-word sermon. And see. Repentance everywhere. What a response that is.

that only happens because of the power of God. That's the only reason why it happens. We'll be looking at what the nation of Syria was like and, and so on. We, Or a pair family ministry as we've talked about before and it's really designed to come alongside our, our families in their own personal growth and helping whole families grow in wisdom in, in, in wholeness, from the gospel of Christ.

With this particular section that we're actually finishing up is called Wisdom from God. And I don't think you can read that verse, maybe you can, it says, forever, oh Lord, your word is settled in heaven, your faithfulness endures to all generations. You establish the earth and it abides. It's from Psalm 119, and, and so it is the wisdom that comes from God that, that we seek.

We're in the seven seas of history, is, that is laid out in this curriculum, by Answers in Genesis, and we have a memory verse that goes with it. This is a, a great verse that actually captures the spirit that we want to have as we go into this study today. 1 Chronicles 29:10-11 says, so David blessed the Lord in the sight of the assembly, and David said, Blessed are you, oh Lord God of Israel, our Father, forever and ever. Yours, O Lord, is the greatness and the power and the glory and the victory and the majesty.

Indeed, everything that is in the heavens and the earth. Yours is the dominion, O Lord, and you exalt yourself as head over it. And our title today is God Sends Jonah. This is the, the titles of the sessions that we've been through.

Last week, we did God Calls Elisha, and we're going back to God Sends Jonah, and actually, I, I like the way it fits a little bit better this way because Jonah does chronologically come after Elisha. And what we've already covered in this class will actually help support some of what we're gonna be studying today. We're gonna be doing review, study, and application. So we get into the review and we'll start with the Abrahamic covenant, which actually goes way before this section that we've been in, but this sets the tone for the people group that God is dealing with.

And that's the nation of Israel. And the Old Testament really is about God dealing with this people group, going clear back to Genesis, the covenant that God makes with Abraham, and Abraham being set aside or set apart from the rest of the nations, and this people group being, designated, to be a light to the rest of the world, as we'll be talking about later. But this Abrahamic covenant, that God makes with Abraham, I will make of you a great nation. and so there, there is that whole series of, of historical events, from that go through Egypt, Moses, and then the, going into the promised land and, and then the Davidic covenant, which is found in 2 Samuel.

Chapter 7. I will establish the throne of His kingdom forever. And God making this covenant with, with David. And actually revealing his purpose.

God's making these covenants because he has a purpose. He has a plan in mind that he is enacting. He's putting into place, and God always works his plan. God is wise enough to know what he wants to do and he's powerful enough to make it happen.

and so that's, that's how God is and he does make it happen. even with imperfect human beings, and it's amazing, what God has to put up with to make his plan come to be, but he does. And, as we'll be seeing again, also in our lesson today, When God wants to do something, he does it and he makes it happen. just a short review through some of the things, slide, or Solomon had, had a slide into history.

Solomon is David's son. So the very next generation after the covenant, Solomon starts off great and we've covered that. We covered the building of the temple, we covered those kinds of things, but we also had to cover his slide into idolatry and it came from the marrying the many wives from different nations and bringing their gods into the nation. And so there began by the end of his forty-year reign.

This slide into idolatry. And then his son, Riaboam, ended up with a divided kingdom. It didn't take long and the kingdom split. And so 10 tribes formed the northern nation, and then 2 tribes were left with a southern nation.

And so we have this, this division of the kingdoms and Jonah primarily as we get into that is gonna be the northern, in the northern part of the kingdom, the northern kingdom, which is called Israel. The southern kingdom is called Judah. And so, that is how it's going to go. the northern kingdom goes immediately into apostasy.

Jeroboam was the, the person that God chose to lead that, that, northern kingdom. And when we read the account, we read about how God made promises to to Jeroboam, that if Jeroboam will follow truly after, after God, that God will bless him and actually keep his, his lineage on the throne in, in this northern kingdom. But Jeroboam, like a lot of leaders, has had a, had a, a part of him that, that lived in paranoia. And leaders are like that.

They, they, they feel like they, they have to do things to hold on to what they have, their power, their authority, and so he did that. And he created a new system of worship because Israel's prescribed by God's system of worship was to go to Jerusalem. And so he sets up his own, his own system and And so builds these places of worship in Bethel in the southern part of the northern kingdom, and then in Dan in the northern part of the kingdom. And they have these two different places of worship.

They have their own statues and, and things to, to worship too. And so, Jeroboam, causes that to happen and, and it is really his sin that, that in this, this very beginning of this northern nation that, moves, Israel, the northern kingdom into apostasy. For the rest of the time. They never got out of that as a nation.

And so, That was, that was the, the beginning and it just went, got worse. They have a later king. expanded the corruption by bringing in bail worship. And so, this made it even worse and we talked about this, last week.

in the, in the weeks prior with both Elijah and Elishah, Elijah is the prophet that had to deal with Ahab. And it, we talked about the confrontations they had on Mount Carmel. We talked about all of those events, even with Bethel. We talked about last week and the bal worship that was going on there.

So Ahab takes it even further. And then we have God sending His prophets. So the, the corruption gets bad, but God in His mercy sends prophets to confront them. And so we have Elijah and Elisha, we have Jonah, we have Hosea, we have Amos, Micah and Nehem, all prophets in this northern kingdom coming to confront, these issues.

And the South also had their ups and downs. in the, in the nation of Judah, and God sent them prophets as well. but in this north, God's sending prophets trying to correct the path and, trying to, turn them back. That's his prophets were there to do that.

Then we come to a character. That has not yet been part of, of our study, but it is going to get us started into, to where we are now, and that is Jahug. And what we have here is Jay Hugh's revival. Jay Hug was a man, a military man.

That was a leader, a military leader underneath one of Ahab's descendants and the prophet sent him a message that he's going to be the next king and Jehu begins to, to take over. And to make a long story short, by the way, I really encourage you to go through and read this if you haven't read it in a while. This is, this is amazing material and And really, the 2nd, 2nd Kings is way better than anything you see on TV. This is, this story is amazing.

all, all of the, the things that are going on, if you like palace intrigue and that thing, that, that's what you're gonna find here. But in all of what Jehu did, he ended up killing all of Ahab's family. Everyone and, and their associates so that there was no one left and that was to fulfill what God has said would happen. because of the corruption that Ahab had brought into the nation, they would all be, destroyed.

They would be wiped out and there would not be a man left of Ahab's descendants, and he had a lot of sons. he had over 70 sons and, and, yet they would all be killed. Jehu saw to that a deliberate actions on his part to completely wipe them out. He also sought to Jezebel's death.

and that was also something that had been ordered by God because of her sin in killing his prophets. And so she was killed in, in a pretty interesting way. And again, I encourage you to read that story. then he did something, pretty interesting.

He, he made an announcement, he gathered people together and said this. Ahab was a little worshiper of Baal. I am a great worshiper of Baal, and we're gonna have this great worship ceremony, inauguration of the new order in our land. And so he made this order to gather all the Baal worshippers in all of the kingdom to come to the central location of, of worship for, for Baal.

They got them all together and and they, they made it really stringent to every bale worshiper would come. They gathered together and crowded them into this temple and Jehu had 80 soldiers stationed around it. And when they got to a certain point in the worship where they would be most vulnerable, Jehu's soldiers went in and killed them all. And so we come to 2 Kings, chapter 10 verse 28.

It says this about Jehu. Thus Jehu eradicated Baal out of Israel. However, as for the sins of Jeroboamboam the son of Nebat, Which he made Israel sin from these Jehu did not depart, even the golden calves that were at Bethel and that were at Dan. The Lord said to Jehu, because you have done well in executing what is right in my eyes and have done to the house of Ahab according to all that was in my heart, your sons of the 4th generation shall shall sit on the throne of Israel.

And so that was Jay Hughes revival, so to speak. At least he got rid of the Baal worship and he got rid of all of the descendants of Ahab. And so then we come to Jeribal on the 2nd. Gerald Wal the 2nd was the great grandson of Jehu and it is in his time period that it's believed that Jonah did his work, that Jonah did the things that he did, and so We find that there is a prophecy in, in 2 Kings chapter 14.

Of Jonah Or of, of, Yeah, that it's Jonah's prophecy. Verse 25 is, is where it is. It says, He restored the border of Israel. This is Jeroboam the 2nd, from the entrance of Hamas as far as the Sea of Araba, according to the word of the Lord, the God of Israel, which he spoke through his servant Jonah, the son of Amatai, the prophet who was of Gath Heffer.

So this is the time of Of Jonah's ministry of his work, and so we believe that, that Jonah's prophecy would have been early on in Jeroboam's reign, unless of course you're one of those people who believe that the prophecies come after the event. so that, so that, it's really just a reporting instead of a prophecy, but, prophecies are to be before the event and so early on in Jeroboam's reign, Jonah would have made this prophecy which is, somewhere in the 8th century BC. So sometime after 800 BC It would be Jonah's prophecy and Jonah's ministry at that time.

One thing more I wanna say before I move on to the next slide, one of the things that we read about the prophets.

That I think is really pertinent to what we'll be looking at today. Is their ministry. For the most part, is a ministry of frustration. their message from God.

In many cases was rejected, ignored. Or even fought against. And so, The prophets, and, and we see examples of, of the writings of some of that in like in Jeremiah. Jeremiah is one of the classics who, who writes about his, his frustration and, and, and even anguish over the rejection of the message from God.

They didn't have, they didn't get, a lot of esteem. in some cases, they got respect, because of the, of the mighty works like Elijah and Elisha., when you got dead bodies around, people get a little afraid and so they, they tend not to, they quit coming after you. but there was still this, lack of respect for the message. And, especially for God, and it was really not wanting to have to change their life.

They were comfortable with the way they are. And so, that was the life of the prophet and, and how they, lived in their world and so they're, you can imagine. If it's your job to, to proclaim the truth of God to the people that are around you, in your nation, the people that you're part of, and there's just, this continual resistance, resistance, resistance, the whole way, there's not the, the big repentance that you want to see. That, that would be very frustrating and that's really what Elijah felt after Mount Carmel.

Elijah had gone through all of the the things he went through for three years. The, the drought, living from day to day, hand to mouth with, with the widow woman, just, barely getting by. Finally, it's over and they had the great victory on Mount Carmel. And what happens?

The great victory happens and it lands like a big thud as far as making a difference. And in fact, Elijah's life is threatened by Jezebel and he's running away. He's tired. He's been through all of this.

And no wonder he says, God just take me out. And what, what am I doing here? he's so disappointed with the results. He was hoping for a big, revival, a, a, a, a reformation within the nation.

that's what he was hoping for. He wanted to see people turn their hearts to God. and with this great display of, of power from the Almighty God. He expected that to happen and That was a lot of times, the lot of the prophet.

That's, that's what they went through all the time. It was, it was this disappointment of not seeing the, the word from God having its intended effect, at least not right away. And I do want to get into how we are going to interpret and understand Jonah. Before we actually get into its message.

we're going to approach it from it being a historical narrative. We're, we are going to interpret it literally. there are a Some objections to that and I'm not gonna get into all of them because I don't have time for all of that. there's, there's, a lot of material on that.

but one of the objectives I'm gonna deal with is that there's pre in, within the text, the Hebrew text, there are some Aramaicisms or Aramaic, Aramaic words and so they, the objection is that it must have been written much later. Like in the, in the 3rd or the 2nd century BC for the presence of those words to, to exist. However, the argument against that is that Aramaic was already by this time, the trade language of the region. From, from Assyria to the north all the way over to Syria and Babylon as well.

Aramaic was their trade language. It was a common language. For the whole region. And so, it would not be unusual for there to be Aramaic expressions in the, in this text because that, how common languages are, they creep into everything.

And so it actually, I think supports the validity of it being from the time. And the fact that There is some, some suggestion by the critics that, that the book of Jonah is not meant to be taken literally, but it's all figurative, that there really wasn't a Jonah. And, and certainly not a, a prophet who was swallowed by a great fish. And that this is all meant to be interpreted allegorically.

Jesus referred to Jonah, in a very direct and specific way, and, and we should look at that and see what he has to say because it's going to play into what we talked about a little bit later. Jesus was asked for a sign. And so he responds by saying an evil and adulterous generation craves for a sign. And yet no sign will be given to it, but the sign of Jonah the prophet.

For just as Jonah was 3 days and 3 nights in the belly of the sea monster, so will the Son of Man be 3 days and 3 nights in the heart of the earth. The men of Nineveh will stand up with this generation at the judgment and will condemn it because they repented at the preaching of Jonah. And behold something greater than Jonah is here. Jesus refers to it as a literal story.

And so the argument is, well, Jesus was just playing into what they, what their understanding was at the time. But that doesn't fit with Jesus being a true, a truth teller. if it wasn't a true story, then Jesus wouldn't explain it as if it was a true story, wouldn't use it as if it was. But he did.

He, he, he used it literally, because his time in the, in the grave was gonna be a literal 3 days. And, and so Jesus is, is dealing with it literally. Furthermore, so was the, the last part of that statement which has to do with the Day of Judgment. And that is also meant to be literal as well and, and we'll be looking at that, the application of that a little bit later.

And I think one of the big deals for The, the problems of, of people taking this literally is really the, the understanding of God's involvement in the world. Is God really involved or is he, as a deist would see it, just made it and then walked away. And So you have the, the attitude like the sadducees, for instance, they did not believe in any miracles. They did not believe in the resurrection.

They did not believe in the supernatural intervention of God into the affairs of mankind. That is really what we're talking about. You see, the, the miracle of Jonah being swallowed by a great fish. is not any greater than Say, Shadrack, Meshach, and Abendigo surviving a fiery furnace.

Or Moses taking his robe or his staff rather, and smiting the the Red Sea and a parting and a great group of people crossing it. In fact, when you go through the Old Testament, you see many amazing works by God showing his direct involvement in the affairs of mankind. There isn't a, a picture of God that's standing back. And holding back and maybe not even paying attention to what's going on.

And the Bible is not meant to be just a, a, a book of nice sayings to turn us into nice people so that we can make the world a better place. That's, that is the view of the higher critics. And that is not what the Bible is about. The Bible is meant to be taken literally and that God is personally involved and in fact so personally involved that he did something even more amazing than all these miracles, which was to send his son to be born of a virgin.

at the, at the time that he said it would happen. In the place that he said it would happen. And that that son would, would grow up, die on a cross, be buried in a tomb, and then come back to life. if we can believe in the virgin birth of God, In a, in a, in a Jewish woman.

Then all the other miracles can be believed as well because God is involved. God is doing things. And so God here in this book in Jonah. is actively involved.

So let's look at Jonah chapter one. Say the word of the Lord came to Jonah, the son of Amatai, saying, arise, go to Nineveh, the great city, and cry against it, for their weakness has come up before me. But Jonah rose to flee to Tarsus from the presence of the Lord. So he went down to Joppa, found a ship which was going to Tarsus, paid the fare, and went down into it to go with them to Tarsus from the presence of the Lord.

And so we find here, the, the first point that I wanted to talk about is God brings up this idea of the wicked city. And real quickly, I can't go into too many details in our time, but If you do the research, Syria was one of those nations, very powerful nation in its time. And Nineveh was at its core, was, was not the original capital of Assyria. But, was, at this time the Capitol and the central part of it.

they were known to be a cruel people. They were, especially to those they conquered, in, in their wars, the, the way they treated their prisoners and, and what they did to the civilizations that they encountered, very cruel. They were intolerant of other religions. they, their, their religion had to do with, the goddess Ishtar, and that was, that was their, their focal point and they didn't accept anything else.

So you can imagine. A missionary going in there, right? Now, Jonah, that, that's gonna be an issue that, that's gotta be in Jonah's mind. Wait a minute, these people aren't receptive to anybody else.

They were a Semitic people. they're descendants of Asher, the son of Shem. And Nineveh was placed on the banks of the Tigris River up in northern, what is now northern Iraq. that is the wicked city.

And we find also that Jonah didn't want to go. And so God gives them the message to go. Why there's been different reasons that have been put out why he wouldn't want to go. And they're all worth thinking about.

One was That he's a narrow-minded patriot. That he, he knows that this nation up here is a powerful nation. They tend to crush the other nations around them, and he sees them as the future coming up down against Israel. And so he, he just as soon they'd be wiped out.

And so he's, he's not wanting to do what God wants to do. He doesn't want them to be spared for those reasons. another reason he's just a narrow-minded or he's a racist bigot. he just hates every other people group.

I really don't think that's true even though sometimes people can use this as a jumping off point to preach against racism and, and certainly racism needs to be preached against, but I don't think this is, is a good place for that. as I already said, there are Semitic people which is they do have some, some similarities racially with the Jewish people. Also, At the time, of Jonah. The, the nation of, of Israel, the Northern Kingdom was very, they had connections with all kinds of people, trading relationships and they traveled to different nations and even though they were often at war like with Syria, the, the Syria, they seem to always have problems with, but the other nations around, there, there was, there was actually a two friendly relationship because they were doing against what God had said, which is to be separate.

And to not be inclusive and bringing in all the cultural issues and gods from the other nations. they were doing that like crazy. And so they're, I don't think that the, the racism aspect of it really plays into it. I do think that there might be something too though that the next one, and that is you have a frustrated prophet wanting a big demonstration.

That if God would destroy Assyria for their ungodliness, then maybe the prophet Jonah coming to his own people could say, look what God did to them. Now that's coming to you next if you don't repent. I think that's a good possibility. and, and I play off of that because of what Jesus said.

saying that the people of Nineveh are gonna be rising up against you. And, and, and so, I think that's what, one of the things that Jonah might have had in the back of his mind and saying, I don't, I don't wanna go there. Whatever it was He left and for him, death was preferred. To going and seeing a nation repent.

as we see in chapter 4, he knew that's what would happen. The message will be preached, they'll repent, God will forgive them, and nothing will happen. And so, He didn't want to, he didn't want to go. He would rather die.

Then have this nation repent. But we, we could read on and we see that God created this great storm in the sea and the story, how Jonah is eventually cast into the sea. He's swallowed by this, this, living submarine and, taken down to the depths of the sea for 3 days and 3 nights. God preserved him from drowning.

And kept him there. Maybe in a semi-conscious state, we don't really know. We know from his prayer, which seems to be at the end of this stay, this, of, of the 3 days and 3 nights that Jonah finally came to his senses, but We do see that. That, Jonah couldn't change God's plan.

God was going to do what he's gonna do and he was gonna use Jonah. And he wasn't going to let Jonas subvert it. And so God intervened in this supernatural way. And, We see actually that it could be.

An object lesson to Israel. And, so, and we'll get into that in chapter 4. Chapter two is, is Jonah's prayer. And so let's read the first couple of verses, says Jonah prayed to the Lord as God from the stomach of the fish, and he called it, and he said, I called out to my Lord, or called out out of my distress to the Lord, and he answered me and I cried from the depth of Shiel.

You heard my voice. And so he has, has this cry out to God. And so he's come to this place of consciousness and of surrender. As we, as we see also in verse 7, says, while I was fainting away, I remembered the Lord and my prayer came to you into your holy temple.

Those who regard vain idols forsake their faithfulness, but I will sacrifice to you with a voice of thanksgiving. That which I have vowed I will pray salvation is from the Lord. Then the Lord commanded the fish, and it vomited Jonah onto the dry land. We see the complete surrender, that comes from the bending of the will.

that's what God did with Jonah. God, pressed him to that place and Jonah finally said, I give. I give up. And, He, he, and, but it, he went so far and, and this is a key part of, I think, repentance is, it wasn't just a, a surrender and saying I give up, but I will worship you.

I will give you what you deserve. And so that is the, the place of repentance. It's a good lesson for us and, and we're gonna be looking at that in the application part of the, of the lesson today. Chapter 3.

we don't have time to read it, but we, we find here Jonah taking the message into Nineveh, and, and I do imagine Jonah, one of the objections is that Jonah didn't speak Assyrin. so how could he, he preach a sermon to them? Well, as you said, it's only 6 words in the Hebrew. So surely, as he gets to the, to the city of Nineveh, well, they already spoke Aramaic, he probably did too, so he could have communicated in Aramaic.

But I imagine him coming up to the welcome center outside of Nineveh, stopping in there, there's a brochures for the hotels and the restaurants and, the points of interest and, but Jonah's not interested in that stuff. He just needs his sermon translated. So he says, do you speak Hebrew? And the guy says, yes, and a little.

He says, well, I only need 6 words. And so he gives them to him and, and, And so the guy's translating for yet 40 days and he's got that part, and then it says, Nineveh destroyed. OK, yeah, this is the message. And Jonah says, thanks, and he takes it and the guy says, wait, what?

No. And he calls his wife on his iPhone and, and he says, you gotta call a real estate agent. We gotta sell the house. I'm sure it's something like that happened.

But anyway, Jonah goes into the city, preaches the message. And just as he was afraid of, people just started responding to it. This is one of the most dramatic scenes in the whole Bible. You see people falling down before God.

how it is. or how it was for yourself when you finally gave in to God, when you surrendered to God in that, that That tug of war, that thing that you had, that tension between you and God, and then you finally gave in. You, you finally heard the right words or, or whatever it was that brought you to faith. Here, you have people who have no clue about anything.

They hear this message. And it's, it's immediate. And as he's traveling through the city, going from place to place, subscribed to the 3, a city of 3 days' journey and some believe that what that meant was it took 3 days for him to go from to every quarter of the city and preach the message. it was a great city.

It was a large city, whether it would take 3 days to walk clear across it, probably not, but it was a city that was densely populated. And there's actually, in one source I read a, a, an expression from, from that part of the world is actually a city of Beirut was once described by a travel agent as a city of 3 days. Well, it's not gonna take 3 days to walk through Beirut, but there's so much stuff to see. At least at that time there was.

that would take you 3 days to see it all. And so that's, that's the idea probably of Jonah going through the city of Nineveh. That in order to get to all the places to, to give them, deliver the message. It, it would take that long.

We have the response of the king. And him, him also being just taken with this message, that God was going to destroy the city. you have examples in other places in the Bible too. We've, we've seen it with Abraham and his dealing with some of the other people groups that don't worship God.

And yet when God does something and In a partic in their, their lives, they, it gets their attention. They, they, they, they immediately understand that there is something in built within them that responds to this, this message of judgment. God obviously has prepared their hearts for this. And they are ready to, to repent.

So, the people hear it repent and the king orders the citywide repentance. And it's not just the people, the animals, everybody., we all, we have to repent and his words are, maybe God will, will hold back his judgment. And so, that is their, Their repentance. OK, chapter 4.

It says that it greatly displeased Jonah, and he became angry. And so, his response is, this is why I didn't want to come. I knew you would do this. Seeing Nineveh repent.

And God relent. was worse than dying. And so he asked God to just, just take me out. Just kill me now.

and, and he's, he's just so disappointed, but he, he, this is, this is the opposite of normally what a prophet would want. The prophet is, but, but he's been a prophet. He's been rejected. The message has not been listened to by his own people.

He comes to a different people group that God has sent him to. A people group that he thinks should be judged. And now he sees God's mercy. So he resents it.

He's angry about it. And, and he expresses that to God. And so God gives him a lesson. And it's the lesson of the plant.

And so, Jonah goes outside of the city, sits on a hill to watch to see what's gonna happen, and he builds himself a little shed or a tent thing to cover himself from the sun. But God causes a plant to grow in a day to cover him. And to give him shade. And so Jonah takes pleasure in that, and then the next day, God kills the plant and it withers away.

And Jonah's mad about that. And, and so God then uses the lesson of the plant to say, you care more about the plant than you do about the people. And, and so there was the lesson of the plant and, and it gives us a way of thinking of what is it we really care about. Sometimes we care more about the plant than we do about the people, don't we?

And, and so God gives him that lesson and then he defends his grace. Because he, God then points to the people. He says, in verse 9, he says, do you have good reason to be angry about the plant? And he, Jonas said, I have good reason to be angry, even to death.

Then the Lord said, you had compassion on the plant for which you did not work and which you did not cause to grow, which came up overnight and perished overnight. Should I not have compassion on Nineveh, the great city in which there are more than 120,000 persons who do not know the difference between their right hand and left hand, as well as many animals. And God Uses the baby card. there's 120,000 children, so young, they don't even know their right hand from their left hand.

plus all the rest of the people, the animals, everything, and you want me to just go in and wipe them out. And, so God defends His grace, and, and it makes us, it should make us realize that God's starting point in his dealing with humanity is love. It's, his starting point is not justice. Ezekiel 33:11.

God says, I do not take pleasure in the destruction of the wicked. God, God's starting point is a place of mercy and grace and love. That's what he, that's what he wants for us. He desires us to follow him.

He desires us to repent. He desires us to turn from our wicked ways and, and over and over and over again from all the pages of scripture, that's what God has been working for. It is us, we. Who are the stubborn ones and who resist God and who, who, who want to go our own way, exercise our own will.

Do our own thing. But it is God who has, has Started from a place of mercy and love and kindness to us. And so, God here defends his grace. Now, I have just about enough time for application.

So, Get into it, first of all, one of the things that we see here that it is God who orders the rise and fall of nations. And For whatever reasons, and God doesn't tell us why Nineveh. Why the Assyrians? there's other wicked nations too.

Right? And, and so, we have to be careful in, in going into the whys, but there are, there are things that we do know about God and that God is a God of purpose. He always has a purpose. And one of the things that we do know about Syria later on in their history.

is that they were used by God to bring judgment upon the northern tribe of Israel. So Was God sending Jonah? To Assyria To preserve them long enough. That they could be used as a hammer of his justice against the northern tribe.

Maybe, you see, when, when a civilization begins to crumble, It, it falls apart quickly. And historically, in, in the reading that I did on Assyria, In the beginning of the 8th century was a time of a, of a, a lull or a, a going down of their civilization. they had begun to be weakened by their own corruption and that's what corruption does, right? It's, it's, it begins to corrode everything and, and so it was beginning to fall apart.

And so it's very possible Jonah knows this and, and yeah, he just wants it to go ahead and, and fall apart. But God isn't done with Assyria. God has a purpose for Assyria and so he is wanting to rescue them. For this point, for this purpose of later on using them to bring judgment upon this northern nation of Israel.

It's, that's, that's a possibility. Whatever it was, God orders the rise and fall of nations, and God is in control of, of all of that. God is involved in our human history. Another thing that we need to learn from this that we must not be too quick to wish God's judgment on others.

probably none of you have this problem, but I, I have this problem. That's why it was one of the first things I thought of when I read this, is, is being quick to, to want God to to rain fire down on them, just destroy them, just take them out. and actually, we do have, certain psalms and, and other prayers like prayers of Jeremiah, where, the, the prayers are asking God to bring judgment on the wicked. And those are not inappropriate as long as they don't cross a line.

And Jonah crossed a line because he had been given a directive. To go to these people. And he instead wished judgment, so he refused to go to these people. We must not be too quick to wish God's judgment on others.

And try to see it from God's point of view. God is looking down at humanity. Is his creation. All of humanity is his property.

And not all of humanity follows after God, but God's, view of humanity is it's all his, and his desire is for repentance to come, for all, all men to come to repentance. So we need to be careful with that. God wants us to see the world through his eyes. And even to those that we are reluctant to share the gospel with.

And, as I was processing this point, I was thinking about Certain groups of people, certain kinds of people, or even certain nations of people that if God said, Dan, I want you to go to that place, I, I might wanna run to Tarsus too. I want, there are, are people that sometimes we hold back. Because of, of, feelings or experiences that we've had with certain, certain people. And, God wants us to have a different perspective, have a point of view that that sees people the way he sees people.

Another thing that I think is really key. And I think it applies to a lot of experiences that we go through. God loved Jonah enough to take him where he didn't want to go. In order to teach him what he didn't want to learn.

God didn't want, or Jonah did not want to go to Nineveh. But I believe that this story is not just about the Assyrian inhabitants of Nineveh. I think it's also about his prophet Jonah. God needed to teach and wanted to teach Jonah compassion.

He wanted to teach Jonah a lesson and Sometimes God takes us that way too. He takes us on this journey to a place that we don't wanna go. To teach us something that we don't want to learn. But if you've ever gone through that.

Then when you look back on it, the sweetness of it. that God was right. And that that was, that was something in my life that needed to be changed. And so when, in the future, when we have to go through something like that, Hopefully that helps us to be more confident in that struggle.

that God really does care about me. And he is teaching me something. He's taking me through this because he has a purpose. To, to work something good in me, something good in my heart.

if you go on to, The internet and, and do a search. You can do a search on Jonah's tomb. I did this a couple of weeks ago and came up with a a video. You can see like about an eight-second video of it being blown up.

In 2014, In the city of Mosul, ISIL had taken it and how they did. They went in and they blew up lots of stuff. And one of the things in that they blew up was, was a mosque that inside the mosque had what they believed to be was the tomb of Jonah. Now Mosul is right on the edge of Nineveh and, and so there is that connection.

Mosul blew these, all these things up because they believe that, that, people too easily give too much veneration in the wrong direction. And they kinda have a point. but, a lot of archaeology gets lost. However, In the blowing up of this mosque that contained what was believed to be the tomb of Jonah.

what was discovered later is they had dug tunnels down into this hill and, and as ISIL was driven out and, the Iraqis took control again, they discovered in these tunnels, went down into a palace that had been built for Saint Acherib. Sennacherib, the king of Assyria, who actually led armies against King Hezekiah in the, in the, in the armies of, of Judea. Well, now they are, trying to preserve the site and, and do archaeological discovery and so on. The tunnels aren't very good and according to this, the last thing I read on it, and so they're trying to shore up the tunnels and, and actually be able to do real archaeological work there.

Sennacherib comes quite a bit after Jonah. So the fact that his tomb would be on top of Sennacherib's palace, it, it, if it really was his tomb, it would have had to have been moved there, probably centuries later. But One of the things that it made me and on the side of that, there's also a tomb of Jonah in Jonah's birthplace in Gathhier just north of Nazareth. So I don't know.

We don't know which one's right. But the point is that there was a lot of admiration in that region for this prophet Jonah, for some reason. And so that at least this, there was a monument there in remembrance of what Jonah had done. And it makes me think that The The prophet sitting on the hill.

Being mad at God and mad at the whole situation isn't the end of the story for Jonah. The Jonah processed all this and maybe even went back into the city and spent time with them and working with them, teaching them about God, teaching them, what God expected. we don't know. We don't know any more than that, but, it, it is a, a, a, topic of interest, I think.

OK, I do wanna close with this even though I'm over time, but this is just so good. In 1851, there was a book published. Written by Herman Melville called Moby Dick. In Moby Dick, there's a chapter called The Sermon.

And the sermon is delivered by a character that, that Herman Melville created, who is a preacher, pastor of this, this small church right on the coast in this, in this village, and, the sailors, would go there before they go out to sea. He is himself a retired sailor and so he kinda comes at his, his sermon which is on Jonah. in this book, from a sailor's point of view. It's a great read.

if you ever get a chance to read it, it's, it's, it's really a good sermon, that's in there, but he has some applications I think are really good. And so I wanted to, to go through them. He says it is a lesson to us all. Because it is the story of the sin, I'm sorry, hardheartedness, suddenly awakened fears, the swift punishment, repentance, prayers, and finally the deliverance and joy of Jonah.

That, that this is our journey, isn't it? We can connect with those things, all those items that God takes us on. But of, but all the things that God would have us do are hard for us to do. Remember that, and hence, he oftener commands us than endeavors to persuade.

Doesn't he? he's not trying to talk us into stuff. He's telling us to go do it. And our place is to obey.

And if we obey God, we must disobey ourselves. And it, it is in this disobeying ourselves, we're in the hardness of obeying God consists. Isn't that the struggle? I think that describes it really well.

And here shipmates, is true and faithful repentance, not clamorous for pardon. But grateful for punishment. I really like that. I think that describes what real repentance is like, that we are, we really truly humble ourselves before God.

This last one is really pointed at himself. He, he says this in the sermon. He says, now I need to come down and sit by you and hear this told to me because this is for someone who's in my position. Jonah did the Almighty's bidding, and what was that?

Shipmates to preach the truth to falsehood. That was it. This shipmates, this is the other lesson, and woe to that pilot of the living God who slights it. Woe to him to whom The world charms from gospel duty.

Woe to him who seeks to pour upon the waters, pour oil upon the waters when God has brewed a gale. I think that's classic. Pouring oil, if, if you don't know, I, I read this to my wife last night. She says, you're gonna have to explain this.

I don't know what that means. Pouring oil on the water is a way of calming the sea temporarily. Like if two ships, if a ship has to rescue people from another ship, that would be a way of doing it, to, to calm the waves for, for a while, so that the ships could come together to, to, so they could rescue them or do whatever they needed to do with that other ship. Currently, no.

This is back then, oh, literally, yes. And what he's saying is, Woe to the, to the, the preacher. Who calms the waters. Rather than that God has, has stirred up.

If God's stirring up a storm, don't try to, to stop it. Don't try to slow it down. Anyway, those are Some, some, I think some really good insights. All right.

We need to close in prayer. It's already 5 after, so, let's pray. Lord, you are the God of the universe. You're the one who holds all of this in your hands.

You're the one who, Made the sea, the dry land, and, and then humans to inhabit all of it. And Father, Before you, we. We are nothing, and yet you're the one who Chooses to involve yourself in our lives and we see this supernatural work. Over and over through your word and even in The lives that we live.

Thank you for that. Thank you for caring about us. Thank you for your, your kindness, your gentleness toward us, and for not giving up on us. Lord, may we faithfully walk before you and, and even in this coming week, may we be people who have open hearts to the world around us.

In Jesus' name, Amen.