We Need a Jonah Today

Well, I like reading the book of Jonah and we're going to tackle it today friends. We're going to have a master class on this book because when we read the book of Jonah, it's easy to miss some important things that are taking place in the narrative. And I say narrative because it's the only book in the Old Testament written in the third person.

But there's a reason for that. It's written from God's perspective. He sees what's going on with the wicked city of Nineveh.

He tells Jonah, for their wickedness has come up before me. It's very similar language God used in describing to Abraham the wickedness of Sodom and Gomorrah. But one thing that stands out about this man, Jonah, is his peculiarities.

Why? We just can't figure them out. First, he tries to outrun God's call on him to go to Nineveh, which is about as foolish as some of us trying to outrun God's call on our own life. You can't outrun God, friends.

If you try, you'd just be the most miserable person on the planet. Secondly, when Jonah gets a new lease on life and he's delivered from certain death, he goes to preach. And then when his preaching is successful, he's mad.

He's mad as a hornet. Then he just gripes and complains to God, kind of like some of us do when things don't go our way. But God is a sovereign who will use whomever he pleases to get his job done.

We're going to explore in detail this book, Jonah, today, friends, and how God can still use a man despite his flaws, kind of like how he's used me through the years. And we'll marvel at the wondrous workings of God. Some egghead scholars have a problem with the miracles in Jonah, but I don't.

And Sam Jones used to say, I'd still believe the book Jonah if Jonah had swallowed the whale. We'll turn now, friends, to the book Jonah. For those of you who seldom read the Minor Prophets, it's right after the book of Obadiah.

Well, what are you going to do when you get to heaven? You're walking the streets of gold and a little poet of a man by the name of Obadiah greets you and asks you how you liked his book. What are you going to say to him? Some of you haven't cracked open the book Jonah since you drew crayons of it in vacation Bible school. All the word of God is worthy of our constant study.

We will begin with some background on the capital of Assyria, the great city of Nineveh, and the prophet Jonah who was sent there by God to preach repentance to them. The name Jonah means dove, and some of you may not realize he grew up in a town called Gathhefer, which is only about two miles north of Nazareth, the place of Jesus' birth. And Jonah himself is typology for Jesus, for Jesus gives his seal of credibility on the book of Jonah.

By saying in Matthew's gospel, but he answered and said unto them, an evil and adulterous generation seeketh after a sign, and there shall be no sign given to it but the sign of the prophet Jonah. For as Jonah was three days and three nights in the whale's belly, so shall the son of man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth. The men of Nineveh shall rise in judgment upon this generation, and shall condemn it, because they repented at the preaching of Jonah, and behold a greater than Jonah is here.

Isn't it neat, friends, how God had a man named Jonah born just two miles from Nazareth. God commanded Jonah to prophesy against Nineveh at a time when the power of the Syrian empire rose resurgent, and it posed a vital and real threat to Israel. That's why initially Jonah refused to go, to go warn them, because Jonah knew the character of God.

He knew the mercy of God, and he knew if the Ninevites really repented and turned to God, that God would spare them. And that's the last thing Jonah wanted to happen, for all he wanted God to do was to destroy these vicious enemies of Israel. Kind of like our own Christian bigotry today.

We'd rather have God wipe out all the sex perverts in the land by raining hell down from heaven on them, instead of us sharing Jesus with them, so he can save them. And I bet some of you didn't know that the book of Jonah is called by some scholars the Acts of the Old Testament, because it graphically demonstrates that God is willing to have mercy on all who seek Him in humility and sincerity. Do you believe that friends? I sure hope you do.

If we really believe that, maybe we'd witness a lot more to the lost in our communities. The repentance of the people of Nineveh postponed the destruction of their city for about 150 years until 612 BC. Both Zephaniah and Nahum prophesied its final destruction, and by 609 BC the Assyrian Empire had vanished forever.

But in Jonah's day, Assyria was a dominant and threatening power in the land of Palestine. Well friends, that's my little introduction to this power-packed book, Jonah, which is only four chapters long. But within those brief chapters, it's much for our consideration.

You may want to get out your pens and pencils and take notes if you're around my age. And for everybody else who's younger, just jot my comments down on your electronic notepad. Let's begin reading this striking biblical narrative of how God works in the souls of men and how He uses a man for His purposes.

Here now is the Word of God, and may God's Spirit attend the reading of His Holy Word. Now the word of the Lord came unto Jonah, the son of Amittai, saying, Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and cry against it, for their wickedness has come up before me. But Jonah rose up to flee unto Tarshish from the presence of the Lord, and went down to Joppa, and he found a ship going to Tarshish.

So he paid the fare thereof, and went down into it to go with them unto Tarshish from the presence of the Lord. I will pause here, friends, to say Tarshish was a Phoenician mining town located in modern-day Spain, and it was situated on the western extremity of the trade routes of the ships of Tyre. Nineveh was to the east of Israel.

So in other words, Jonah was going as far away as he could in the opposite direction from the place God had told him to go. Jonah jumped up as quick as he could, and ran like the wind to get as far away from God as he thought he could, kind of like some of us today who once got a call from God on our lives. And we tried to outrun God by going in the opposite direction, like the college girl who was a friend of my daughter, and who told me God had called her to be a foreign missionary.

But when she looked into it, she realized she had to raise her own support, and that scared her. So she changed her major in school to become a medical technician, so she could make money and six figures a year, and have more stability in her life. But she's gone from one broken marriage engagement to another since that time, and her personal life has no stability at all, because she thought she could outrun God like Jonah tried, or like the successful businessman I knew who was sharing with me that when he was a young man, God called him to be a preacher, but he soon learned how little money it paid, and he didn't want to live in poverty.

So instead he became a business major, started a financially successful business enterprise. But when I talked to him last, he was on his third marriage, and in a financial trial, he found out you can't outrun God. How many of you listening to me now, at one point in your life, were so on fire for God, and longed to be greatly used of Him, but you just couldn't walk away from your business, and go out on a limb for God, and since that time you still serve God as best as you can, but deep down you wonder about the what if, and that's what's going to haunt you at the judgment seat of Christ, all the what ifs, if you had obeyed God's call to begin with.

Had Jonah hardened his neck against God in that whale's belly, instead of praying to the Lord God out of the fish's belly, where we hear his penitent prayer in Jonah chapter 2 and verse 2, which states, and said, I cried by reason of mine affliction unto the Lord, and he heard me out of the belly of hell cried I, and thou heardest my voice. Old Jonah got a good dose of the fear of God, as he drew close to his death in that dark salty belly of that great whale, and even though he was underwater, and swallowed up, and beyond all hope and help, he still cried to his God to rescue him, and God heard that salty prayer, and he showed Jonah mercy, and worked a miracle on his behalf, and turned that whole whale into a water taxi, that drove Jonah straight back to Nineveh, and delivered him softly on the beach, as that whale burped out that little Hebrew, and that takes us to chapter 3, where Jonah finally obeys God's call, and he goes to preach repentance to those pagan Ninevites, he cried and said, yet 40 days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown, you know he only had one message, and he kept harping on that message, and the people believed God, the text reads, for listen friends, some of us preachers, that might not be bad advice, to get a good sermon, and stick with it, maybe God will bless it as well, I want us to take a good look at the proclamation of Jonah's message, when a man of God obeys God, and delivers God's message, then you see a combustible sermon that's on fire, for God told Jonah, preach unto it, the preaching that I bid thee, I wonder how many pastors on Saturday night, search Bible commentaries, or news stories, trying to get a message to preach on Sunday, instead of shutting themselves up, alone with God, and spending that time with God in prayer, to get on their heart, what's on God's heart, and then ask God's anointing, to go preach what others won't preach, for fear of the good deacons, I wonder if we did that, if we'd have a combustible sermon, that would burn the conscience of man, and bring conviction of sin, and alarm to their perilous position, to where we'd start to hear men, and women, and boys, and girls, in our congregation, crying out in desperation, what must I do to be saved, well that's what old Jonah did, and God attended his preaching, and an entire city was driven to its knees, from the king on down, to the shoeshine boy, and they all repented in sackcloth and ashes, and they cried out in tears of bitterness a soul, who can tell, if God will turn and repent, and turn away, from his fierce anger, that we perish not, and we see God's response to their sincere repentance, in chapter 3 and verse 10, 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, brother pastor, do you want to see God move in your midst like that, do you want to see your church, in the midst of a powerful heaven-sent shaken revival, do you want to see souls brought from darkness and death, into light and light, then get alone with the thrice holy God, get on your knees with him, get on your heart, what's on his heart, and ask him for the courage, and boldness, to go face a militant crowd, and deliver that message, in the power of his spirit, and in his might, and you'll be amazed at what God can do, I'm not going to spend time, and trying to figure out a Hebrew prophet, who gets mad, when God saves a city, but I will focus on the last verse of this power-packed book, Jonah, which declares the heart of God, towards the lost and perishing, because maybe some of you are a little too tightly wrapped, and it's dampened your evangelistic efforts, to go out and reach the hell-bound, in your community, with the gospel of the son of God, and the salvation of souls, and all you do, is preach to the same little group, every week, and you're not out there on the streets, knocking on doors, and ringing doorbells, with any gospel outreach, because you've adopted the come and hear mentality, instead of Christ's mandate, to go and tell, and you see little results, in the conversion of souls, but God sent his preacher, out onto the streets of this great city, and we see the following words, and should I not spare Nineveh, that great city, wherein are more than six score thousand persons, that cannot discern, between their right hand, and their left hand, and also much cattle, God even had concern for the cows, in that community, how much more, for hardened sinners, in need of a remedy for sin, in the person of Christ Jesus, I'm going to end this message friends, by sharing with you now, what my homiletical mentor, Dr. Stephen F. Offord, shared with me, regarding the burden of his heart, for revival in his day, these are his words, he said, I long for men like Jonah, who will emerge, from the deep waters of purging, and preparation, to stride across our cities, preaching repentance, until it can be said, that the people believe God, proclaim to fast, and put on sackcloth, from the greatest to the least, for one man, truly revived, crying out, in God's name, for repentance, can bring a nation to its knees, I'm out of time friends, and this wicked nation of ours, is running out of time as well, oh great God, send us some preachers, who don't fear men, but who only fear you, I pray these things, in the strong name of Jesus, Amen.