Jonah 2:10- 3:4

Eject!  Eject!  Jonah’s hitchhiking days were over, and my guess is that he was probably much cuter the first time he entered the world than this second time.  (I’m just wondering how much ceremonial cleansing and sacrificing he had to do.  I’m thinking back over Levitical law, and I don’t remember anything about how many days you’d be considered unclean or which sacrifices you’d have to offer if you’d been swallowed by a fish.  Not much legal precedent on that one.)

With his “rebirth” came a re-commissioning of the original commission.  And this time, Jonah didn’t hesitate to get up and go.  Wise choice.  Some people just have to learn things the hard way, and many times, they are the ones who most passionately warn people not to go down the road they traveled.

Was this the case with Jonah?  Did he have compassion on the Ninevites and wanted to warn them to repent so they wouldn’t suffer dire consequences just like he had?

Um, I’m thinking—not, and if you’ve read the rest of Jonah’s story, you can probably see the evidence for that in chapter 4.  But let’s not get ahead of ourselves.

First of all, it wouldn’t surprise me if Jonah had thought this whole itinerant preaching gig was an exercise in futility.  While there were a few examples of “righteous Gentiles” in Israel’s history, you didn’t generally see large groups—whole cities—of pagans basically repenting of their entire way of life and turning to the one true God.  Generally, what you see in Old Testament history is God commanding the total obliteration of pagan nations. So, with history on his side, Jonah may have assumed that his warnings of God’s overthrow of Ninevehwould not be heeded.

Along those same lines, it might have been difficult for Jonah to wrap his mind around the idea of God’s desire for the Ninevites to know Him. Israel was God’s chosen people, after all.  In their minds, they had cornered the market on God, and the unclean Gentiles had no business with Him.  (There were, however, examples, of Gentiles coming to know the Lord—for instance: Exodus 12:48, Ruth 1:4, 16—so this shouldn’t have been a totally foreign concept.)

Finally, as mentioned in earlier lessons, Assyria (with Nineveh as its capital) had attacked and harassed Israel in the past, so even though Jonah was now being obedient to God’s command to preach His warning to the Ninevites, it’s doubtful Jonah had any special love for them.  He may have even been a little resentful that God was giving them the opportunity to repent.

But, despite Jonah’s probable misgivings, preach, he did:

“Yet forty days and Nineveh will be overthrown!”

And that was the beginning of the good news for you and for me.  The call to repent and believe the Gospel is available to all.  It doesn’t matter who you are, your nationality, or where you were born.  God doesn’t play favorites.  He desires that all come to know Him.

For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son,
that whoever believes in Him shall not perish,
but have eternal life. John 3:16

Journal Time:

Read Acts 10:1-35.  Compare Peter’s attitude towards the Gentiles to Jonah’s.  What were some similarities?  Differences?

Has there ever been someone on whom you would rather have had God’s judgment fall than for the person to repent and experience God’s grace?  Why?  What did that say about your heart?  What do Ezekiel 18:23, 33:11, and II Peter 3:9 say about God’s heart?

Prayer Points:

Repent: of any time you have preferred judgment over repentance and grace for someone.

Request: that God will give you a burden for the salvation of those who are in rebellion against Him.

Seek God: for ways you can see sinners through His eyes and love them as He does—with the desire that they come to Him in repentance and faith.

Jonah 2:1-9

There’s a lot we can learn about prayer from Jonah:

It’s ok to cry out to the Lord in distress (2).

If you’re like me, you’ve heard a million times that our praying shouldn’t be relegated only to crying out to the Lord in distress.  You’ve probably also heard verses like James 1:2, which might make you think that when tough times come our way, God wants us to just grin and bear it.

It’s true that we need to maintain a healthy, balanced prayer life by spending time with God every day.  One of the benefits of doing so is that we won’t find ourselves in Jonah’s shoes nearly as often, because we’ll be more in tune with the Spirit’s leading, and more apt to be obedient.

But when those tough times come, whether of our own making, or not, God wants us to cry out to Him.  The joy that James 1:2 talks about is joy in the result of the trial (James 1:3-4), not in enjoying the pain and suffering itself.  Even Jesus, when He was in Gethsemane before His crucifixion, cried out to the Father in anguish (Luke 22:41-44).  Hebrews 12:2 says that Jesus endured the cross for the joy set before Him.

It’s ok to tell God you hurt.  It’s ok to ask for His help.

Prayer doesn’t always require a specific posture or place (1, 2, 7).

In this passage, we don’t see Jonah on his knees in his “prayer closet” (Matthew 6:6) speaking softly to the Lord with hands neatly folded.  In verse 7, he’s at the bottom of the sea, nearly unconscious, thinking a prayer.  In verses 1-9, he’s inside the fish, talking out loud.

While it’s best to have a quiet place and uninterrupted time for our main time of daily prayer, I Thessalonians 5:17 tells us to “pray without ceasing”, which means that we should maintain an ongoing inner dialogue with God regardless of where we are or what we’re doing.

Pray Scripture back to the Lord (2-4, 6).

Does anything in Jonah’s prayer sound familiar to you?  If so, it could be because he was praying Scripture to the Lord:

2- From my distress I called upon the LORD; The LORD answered me (Psalm 118:5a—I find it humorous that the rest of this verse says, “and set me in a large place,” but I guess maybe Jonah wasn’t in the mood to see the irony.)

You have delivered my soul from the depths of Sheol. (Psalm 86:13)

3- All Your breakers and Your waves have rolled over me. (Psalm 42:7)

4- As for me, I said in my alarm,
         “I am cut off from before Your eyes”;
         Nevertheless You heard the voice of my supplications
         When I cried to You. (Psalm 31:22)

6- To bring back his soul from the pit, (Job 33:30)

Be thankful (9).

To an outsider, it might not have been apparent, but Jonah had a lot to be thankful for.  God loved him enough to chase him down, stop him from sinning, turn Jonah back to Himself, save his life, and still be willing to use him for Kingdom work.

Did you eat today?  Wake up this morning with a roof over your head?  Can you walk, talk, see, hear, think clearly?  Were you arrested the last time you tried to go to church?  We have a lot to be thankful for, too, but we take so much for granted.

Get up off your knees, changed (8-9).

Jonah got up off his knees recognizing who he was and who God was.  He purposed in his heart at that moment not to forsake his faithfulness to the Lord.  He intended to walk in the way of grateful worship, fulfill the calling God had placed on his life, and be obedient.

Cooperating with God as He works to develop your prayer life will not leave you unchanged.  When you commit to become a praying person, be prepared to: fall in love with the things of God, know Him better, walk with Him more closely, see Him move in your life, and become more obedient, thankful, humble, kind, and fruitful.  Every day, you’ll come away from your prayer time a little more changed into His likeness.

Preach the Gospel to yourself (2-9).

That’s basically what Jonah was doing in his prayer.  He recounted that he was dying in his sin, terrors on every side, no way to help himself.  But, God, in His mercy, reached down and saved him.  Now, he had a new start.

Remember where you came from—the sin that once bound you—and how God brought you out.  Meditate on God’s grace and mercy in saving you.  Think about the terrible price Christ paid on the cross to save your life.  Consider the victory that is yours through the resurrection.  Praise Him for His compassion and His love. 

And, hey, you won’t even smell like fish when you get done.

 

Journal Time:

Consider your prayer life.  Which of the above are strong areas in your prayer life?  Which are weak areas?

 Make a “prayer plan”.  Are there some practical things you could do to strengthen your weak areas or your prayer life in general?  Can you think of any Scriptures about prayer to guide you?

Prayer Points:

Repent: of any time you’ve prayed with wrong motives (James 4:3) or outside God’s will.

Request: God’s help in being more faithful to Him in prayer.

 Seek God: for ways in which you can cooperate with Him as He works to develop your prayer life.

Jonah 1:17-2:7

 

Well, Jonah had finally belly-flopped right into his brick wall.  No more running.  If he wanted any chance at living, he had no choice but to fling himself at the foot of  God’s throne, own up to everything, and beg for mercy.  And that’s just what he did.  Once he caught his breath, that is.  And in order to do that, he needed a self-contained underwater breathing apparatus, circa the Iron Age.  Which God graciously provided.

Now, a lot has been written about just what kind of fish or aquatic mammal this was that swallowed Jonah.  There’s been speculation that it was this kind of whale or that kind of shark, or that maybe it was some kind of unknown sea creature.  There are scientists who say that the story of Jonah couldn’t possibly be true because there isn’t a whale or fish alive today that’s anatomically capable of swallowing a man whole, while plenty of others point to the fact that our knowledge of the extent of existing marine life is incomplete at best, that the species Jonah was swallowed by could now be extinct, or that it could have been a Shaquille O’Neal version of a currently existing species.  It all makes for an entertaining debate, but in the end, it really doesn’t make any difference.  It’s kind of like analyzing the paint color on the convertible JFK was riding in.

The point of this whole story is not what kind of fish swallowed Jonah.  The point is that God was willing to save Jonah.  The point is that we have a God who is willing to redeem us.  Why don’t you just sit with that a minute and give it some serious thought.

How weighty is it that the God who is bigger and more powerful than the entire universe loves each of us, individually, enough to desire to bring us back to Himself?   Since we were conceived in the womb (Psalm 51:5), we have been rebelling against God, spitting in His face, mocking Him, shaking our tiny little fists at Him, all the while walking around in the bodies He gave us, breathing the air He created, and eating the food He provided.  If that isn’t chutzpah, I don’t know what is.

Just like Jonah, we’ve said with our actions, attitudes, and maybe even our words, “I don’t like what You’re telling me to do, and I’m not going to do it.  I’m going to do things my way.”  We deserve every ounce of wrath and hell God could possibly pour out on us, and still He wants us back. 

Because of his sin, Jonah was drowning.  He wasn’t floating placidly on the surface, he was at the bottom of the sea (3, 5, 6), tangled up in the weeds (5), about to black out from oxygen deprivation (7).  He thought God was finally finished with him (4), but with his very last conscious thought, he cried out to the Lord to save him (4, 7)…

I called out of my distress to the Lord…
      …and He answered me

I cried for help…
     …Thou didst hear my voice

I remembered the Lord…
     …and my prayer came to Thee

When Jonah cried out to Him, did God say, “Forget it.  You’ve had your chance.  It’s too late now.”?  No.  He scooped Jonah up out of that water and saved him.  We have a God, who, despite having every right to destroy us, longs to set us free from the sin that binds us and lift us up out of the pit.  All we have to do is turn around and call out to Him, and He answers and saves us.

Why?  After all we’ve done to Him, why would God ever want to rescue us? 

Because anybody can throw away a piece of garbage.

But it takes Somebody really special to turn that piece of garbage into gold.
 

When God turns ashes into beauty, trash into treasure, sin into righteousness, it demonstrates His greatness, and He gets glory. 

He did it for Jonah.  He’ll do it for you, too.

 

Journal Time:

Has God taken you, a piece of garbage, and turned you into gold?  If so, write about your salvation experience.  If not, do you want Him to?  Why or why not?

Even if you’re walking closely with the Lord, there are areas of sin in your life that need to be refined into gold.  What are these areas?  How do you see God working to bring these areas of your life into submission to His desires?

Prayer Points:

Repent: If you are still drowning at the bottom of the ocean like Jonah was and have never repented and given your life to Christ, do so now.  Turn from your sin and call out to Jesus to save you.

If you are already saved, repent of any garbage you’re still clinging to in your life.  Surrender it to the Lord.

Request:  The times of refreshing that come with repentance and returning (Acts 3:19).

Seek God: For opportunities to share your “garbage into gold” testimony with others.

Jonah 1:10-17

Sometimes when we read Bible stories, we tend to forget that these were real, flesh and blood people, just like us.  They were living out all these events just like we live our own lives—in the moment—with no fore-knowledge of what was going to happen next. 

The fact that Jonah was a prophet did not mean that he could see into the future about every event in his own life.  So, it’s worth reminding ourselves here that when Jonah told the sailors to pick him up and throw him into the sea, everyone involved probably assumed he was going to die.  They had no idea it was lunch time and Moby Dick was looking for an all you can eat buffet.  All they knew was that it was a bad storm and they were out in the middle of the sea.  Not a prime survival situation.

The sailors, clearly, did not want to throw Jonah overboard.  Matthew Henry (Matthew Henry’s Commentary on the Whole Bible, v. 4, p.1010-1011) thinks this is largely because Jonah demonstrated a great deal of remorse over both his sin and the consequences the sailors were suffering due to his sin, and the sailors felt sorry for him.  Certainly, this could indeed be the case.  We don’t know their motives for sure because the Bible doesn’t tell us what was going on in their hearts and minds in that moment.

Maybe I’m more cynical than Brother Matthew, but, in trying to put myself in the shoes of the captain and crew, I’m looking particularly at verses 10 and 14, and I’m leaning more towards thinking these guys were less concerned about Jonah’s personal fate—after all, he’s the one that got them all into this calamity in the first place—and more concerned about making sure God didn’t zap them for making His prophet walk the plank.  (Sorry, I know these guys were merchant seamen, not criminals, but I can’t help imagining them dressed as pirates and saying “Arrrgh” a lot.)  Maybe it was a mix of both motives.  It’s hard to know.  Emotions were certainly running high.

But whether it was an honorable motive or a less honorable motive that drove the sailors, the result was the same.  They—initially—disobeyed God’s command (through Jonah’s mouth) to throw Jonah into the sea.  And what happened?  The storm got worse and worse.

And not only did they disobey God’s specific instructions, they tried to fix things in their own way and in their own strength.  “They rowed desperately” (a translation note in my Bible says this could be translated as “they dug their oars into the water”—a great word picture) to try to get to dry land until they were exhausted.  And, again, what happened?  The storm seemed to take on a will of its own.  Verse 13 says the sea was becoming even stormier against them.  Even though Jonah clearly told the sailors (12) what to do and what the result of their obedience would be, they disobeyed and tried to do things their own way.

“Oh, those foolish sailors,” we say, shaking our heads.  “Why didn’t they just obey right off the bat?  They were even told what the outcome would be.”

Because these were real, flesh and blood people, just like us, remember?  They were living out all these events just like we live our own lives.  How often do we disobey God’s clear instructions to us in His word?  Sometimes he clearly tells us the consequences of our obedience (Ephesians 6:1-3) or disobedience.  Sometimes he shows us the possible consequences through the life of a Biblical character (II Samuel 12:9-14).  And yet, we still disobey.  We don’t like what God has told us to do, so we try things our own way.  And what happens?  The storm of consequences, even if it’s not immediately evident, gets worse and worse until we finally bow the knee in obedience.  Whether in this life, or the next.

Man overboard.  Cue the whale.

Journal Time:

Can you think of a time when you disobeyed, or delayed obedience to, God’s clear instructions to you?  What were the consequences?  What did God teach you about obeying Him?  How might Isaiah 55:8-9 have applied to this situation?

Ephesians 6:1-3 was cited as an example of a command with a clearly stated outcome of obeying that command.  I Corinthians 6:9-10 is an example of a clearly stated outcome of disobedience to certain commands.  Can you think of other commands or principles in Scripture, whose consequences for obedience or disobedience are clearly stated?

Prayer Points:

Repent: of any areas in your life where you are walking in disobedience to the clear instructions of God’s word.

 Request: that God will fill you with the desire and strength to obey Him immediately when you are tempted to try things your own way.

Seek God: Ask God to lead you to Scriptures that you can “hide in your heart, that you might not sin against Him.” (Psalm 119:11)  Memorize them.

Jonah 1:3-16

 

God only lets us continue in our sin for so long.  He eventually stops us either by death or by discipline.  And our boy, Jonah, was about to get disciplined in a big way.

In God’s legal system, there’s a difference between discipline and punishment.  Punishment is the pouring out of God’s wrath and retribution against sin.  People who are genuinely converted Christians never have to experience punishment because Jesus took our punishment for us at Calvary.  (Can I get a “hallelujah!” and “to God be the glory!”?)  People who choose to reject that substitutionary atonement choose to take their own punishment in an eternity in hell. 

Discipline is the mercy of God putting up a brick wall for us to run into so we’ll turn around and get out of our sin.  Once you run into that brick wall enough times, you start noticing that our kind and compassionate God puts up a lot of warning signs along the path before you get there.  He gives us His Word.  The Holy Spirit convicts us of our sin in our spirits.  He may send us a “Nathan” (II Samuel 12:1-15) to come alongside us and point out our sin.  He might give us a small taste of the discipline that’s eventually to come.

God disciplines us for our own good, but sometimes He also does so for the sake of those around us.  Many times, my sin doesn’t just affect me, it affects my family, my friends, my church, or others.  It’s not fair that those people should have to suffer the consequences of my sin.

God sent the first part of Jonah’s “brick wall” in the form of a huge storm at sea.  At first, Jonah was the only one on the ship who was not affected by it.  He was below deck, snoozing obliviously, while the crew was frantically trying to save the ship.  It was due to Jonah’s sin that the crew suffered the loss of their cargo (which would have resulted in a loss of income), the struggle to save the ship, fear for their lives, and fear of God’s retribution for throwing Jonah overboard.  Once God meted out Jonah’s discipline by having him thrown into the sea, those harsh circumstances (except for the loss of the cargo—sometimes our sin can have long-reaching or even permanent consequences for others) ceased.

But in addition to discipline being for our own good and the good of those affected by our sin, discipline also brings God glory.  In Jonah’s case, this idol worshipping crew was ignorant of the one true God.  When God sent the storm, they quickly became aware of His all-encompassing power, His pre-eminence over their gods, His intolerance of sin, the consequences for sin, His sense of justice, His retribution against the enemies of His people (14), and His mercy upon them once the storm was over. 

In fact, in that moment, the crew of the ship seemed to have a better grasp of the nature of God, or at least a higher regard for it, than Jonah did.  The sailors, not Jonah, were the ones who called a prayer meeting and cried out to God (6, 14).  They, not Jonah, were the ones who sought to root out sin and make amends with God (7-8, 14-15).  They, not Jonah, were the ones who recognized God for who He was and worshipped Him (16).  Jonah’s bleary-eyed declaration, “I fear the Lord God of heaven…” may have rung a little hollow with the sailors as they clung to mast and main praying desperately to survive Jonah’s rocky relationship with this God of his. 

In the end, the storm seems to have served a multitude of God’s purposes: Jonah was disciplined, God was glorified, and the crew of the ship had their eyes opened to who God was.

Journal Time:

Compare the sailors’ experience of the consequences of Jonah’s sin with Joshua and Caleb’s experience of the consequences (Numbers 14:34) of the negative report about the Promised Land given by the other ten spies (they eventually got to enter the land, but still had to endure the 40 years of wilderness wandering) (Numbers 13-14).  How were these situations similar or different?  How might you have reacted had you been the sailors, Joshua, or Caleb?

Have you ever been oblivious to the effect your sin had on others?  Have you ever suffered as a direct result of someone else’s sin?  What did God teach you through this experience?

Prayer Points:

Repent: of any sin that has caused others to suffer.  Make amends with that person, if possible.

Request: that God will help you to forgive anyone who has caused you to suffer through his own sin.

Seek God: to open your eyes to any unknown sin in your life that may be causing hurt to others.