Jonah Ch.3: Great God of Jonah

So good, so good. Well welcome. If I haven't met you,

my name is Zi. I'm part of the team here on the Adventure staff.

It's my privilege to share with you from Jonah this morning, the Book

of Jonah. You are joining us for our series that we're calling Jonah Lessons

from a Guy who ran, and we're finding out we have a lot in

common with this guy. I want to kind of just lead with the question

that I want to hang over you in the next few minutes that we will

look to answer together at the end, and that is who is this great

God of Jonah? Who is this God of Jonah? Just as a bit

of a summary for us, I'm going to recap what we've covered so far,

but I still encourage you to go back and listen to the podcast if

you've missed them. But as a recap, I just want to include for

you a word that is used repeatedly in this book, and it is the

word great. So so far we of Jonah, who is a prophet of

Israel sent to the great city of Nineveh. Great because they are the capital

of Assyria, Great because they are known for their cruelty and their violence and

their ruthlessness. They are a feared people. Jonah is to go to this

people group and deliver a message of God's coming judgment, which none of us

are signing up to do, including him. We've already stated that Jonah did

not want to go. He clearly does not want to go. In fact,

he doesn't want to go so much, probably because he knows that if

the people were to repent, which by the way, seems unlikely, but

if they were to ask God for forgiveness, God is so great he would

in fact forgive them. So Jonah doesn't want to go. So instead he

goes down to the boat doc and he pays the fair. Scripture says,

which I just want to remind you that when you and I go in the

opposite direction that God tells us to go, we will pay a price for

that choice. So he pays the fair, he buys a ticket, he

gets on the boat. Scripture I just want to insert actually, and God

thinks to himself, I guess we're doing this the hard way. Then scripture

paints the picture of a great storm, and the storm is so great that

the sailors are in danger. They're trying to row against the storm. Jonah

fesses up because they're asking who's offended their God that's causing this to happen.

Jonah says, well, I've offended not just a god, but the God

of heaven and Earth, and you should throw me overboard. They don't want

to do that. They try and row against the storm. He finally convinces

them this is the only way through, so they agree and they throw him

overboard. When he's thrown overboard into this great storm in the sea, two

things happen. Number one, God stops the storm immediately, and number two,

God provides a great fish to swallow Jonah hole. And then scripture tells

us the sailors are awestruck by God's great power. It's just been demonstrated directly

in front of them. Jonah surely thinks this is the end. I am

now plummeting to the bottom of the ocean inside of a fish that I can't

get out of. He compares the belly of the fish to Sheol or hell.

We suggested last week. It's a hell of his own making. His

choices have led him to the depths of Hell or Sheol. And maybe you've

experienced that, and maybe you're sitting in those depths right now it's a dark

place, and from the depths of the sea, Jonah cries out to God.

Not only does he quote unquote remember God, which is just a way

of saying he's he's gonna return to God, he also admits that he's been

clinging to what he calls worthless idols. He turns his heart back to God

and he renews his devotion to God. And the result is, after three

days in the belly of a fish at the bottom of the sea, God

rescues Jonah by causing that fish to vomit Jonah onto dry land, which is

where we pick up today's text. If you would be so kind as to

let me even take that recap and just summarize it even a little briefer for

our purposes today. It's the foundation we will be built on today. No

matter how far you run, no matter what price you pay to run,

wherever you choose to run, and no matter how deep the depths or how

hopeless it seems, God will hear when you cry out to Him. Would

you join me as we pray God across this room and watching online, We're

in all different states of our lives. I am confident that there are those

listening today, who have made the choice to pay the fair and run in

the opposite direction. Some in this room feel like they are in the depths

of the hell of their own making. Some in this room remember what that

was like and know your forgiveness and never want to return there. And some

are debating which choice they will make. And yet we're all here in this

room together with the opportunity to cry out to a great God, and you

are here with us. So God, I ask your presence will be obvious,

and that our hearts will be sensitive as we learn from your word and

your name. Amen, if you have your Bible, if you will turn

to Jonah chapter three, I'm going to read from the New Living Translation.

If you don't have a Bible, the words will be on the screen.

This is a really short chapter, and I'm going to start with reading the

first two verses, which just give us the very basics, and we will

build from there. Jonah chapter three, Verse one. Then the Lord spoke

to Jonah a second time. Okay, post vomit, Get up. I

want to so badly insert my own commentary, Get up, you idiot,

No, get up and go to the great city city of Nineveh and deliver

the message I've given you, which I want to say that I already told

you to do once before. Before we jump into anything past this, I'm

just gonna invite you into my mind for a moment, because this is what

happens when I'm going to study or work on a message. I just ask

questions, and so allow me to share with you some of the questions.

I asked that maybe if you're new you're asking, maybe if you've grown up

hearing this story, you have forgotten that these are good question. So first

question I asked, when I was studying this week, how does Jonah feel

right now? How does he feel? I mean, we have really no

way of actually knowing how he feels when he gets vomited onto the land,

because it doesn't say but let's just use your imaginations for a minute, and

let's just say he probably, I hope, feels super grateful at this second

chance in life, wouldn't you. I mean, he probably has this sense

of gratitude that, strange as the circumstances are, a fish swallowed him whole

and he did not die. Thank you for the fish, And I hope

he had some thanksgiving in his heart to the God that he prayed to to

give him a second chance. For giving him that second chance, is he

anxious to just go do everything God's called him to do? I mean,

we hope that it's at tude helps us understand his coming actions. But all

we know is in the coming verses we will see he is not super in

love with the idea of going to Ninefa, but he has learned and he

will go. So we see the guy feels obedient. I'm and you know

he learned the hard way. I'm gonna be obedient, not doing that whole

belly of the fish thing again. The second question that I couldn't help but

ask was did anyone witness the vomiting of the man onto the land? You're

laughing because you probably haven't thought of this, but I was trying to imagine.

So I was in my head. I was conjuring up this image.

I was picturing Michael Teo Beach and I was like, well, okay,

so there's a family and they're down there and it's their five year old's birthday,

and all the five year olds are wearing like cute little princess dresses and

they're roasting marshmallows and parents are playing I don't know, horseshoes or botch ball

or maybe there's speech volleyball happen and kids are playing in the water, and

suddenly a massive fish breeches, which is awesome, gets everyone's attention, and

vomits a human onto the land, contents of the stomach at all. And

the man wriggles his way out of the vomit and gets up and starts walking.

I mean, did anyone see this? Did anyone see this? Okay?

Well, as I was imagining, did anyone see this? I was

trying to imagine where this actually happened. So I have a map for you.

I'm a big map fan, And what this map is is you'll see

Joppa down in the bottom here. That's where Jonah paid the fair. That's

where he got on the boat. He's supposed to go to Nineva on the

right. Instead, you'll see his path was too tarshish. But you'll see

the squiggly black line. Just imagine with me, that's the storm. They're

blown off course, they're just fighting against the and then ends up probably somewhere

on the coast of Syria, because as you can see, there is no

shores of Ninevah. But If you Google, you will see Jonah was spit

up on the shores because people who haven't actually looked at a map and seeing

that that's possible impossible. In fact, if the map were bigger, you

would see that the only way for Jonah to get spit up on the shores

of Nineveh would be for the fish to carry him out of the Mediterranean Sea,

around the continent of Africa, up through the Arabian Sea and then hit

your right in the river to drop him on the shores of Nineveh. It's

problematic, but I have to admit I had never pictured anything else except Jonah

spit up on the ground conveniently in Nineveh, and he just gets up like,

well, I'm here, I might as well start talking. Not the

case. If we ask did anyone see this freakish event happen? It would

garner some attention. I mean, there would be a crowd gathered around this

man. In fact, if Jonah gets up and starts marching towards Ninevah,

he's probably got a crowd going with him, and in fact, there's probably

people running ahead of him to tell anyone they come across. Wouldn't you tell

everyone you know? If you saw a human being spit up out of a

fish. Okay, just me. I'm telling everyone I know anything that happens

to me, I tell anyone everyone I know. You're putting it on social

media, you're calling your family, and that is possibly what is happening here.

The word has spread. It's possible the word has spread to Ninevah before

Jonah has even arrived in Ninevah. Hey, the fish guy's coming. The

fish cuts all right. My last question introduction to my brain is did Jonah

look different? Just let yourself dwell on that one for a second, because

fish, like humans, have stomach acid, and stomach acid is intended to

break down the contents of the stomach, and one of the contents of this

fish's stomach was a human being. And stomach acid, if it does its

job, is a bad scenario for Jonah. In fact, this whole thing

is a bad scenario for Jonah. This is a very inhospitable environment for a

human being, because let's start with the fact that there's no oxygen. Have

you ever seen pictures of cute little like the cartoony ones where Jonah is having

his own little camp fire in the whale. It's just so certainly not happening.

Is it possible that Jonah has the process of him being broken down has

started? And what I mean by that is some scholars, many scholars have

speculated that Jonah's appearance would have been bleached white. Okay, that Jonah bleached

white from fish digestive acids, spit out on ashore with a crowd of people

following him, is marching straight towards Ninevah. I mean, he's still gotta

go, He's gotta go aways. And as he's marching, is it possible

that it would help in the delivery of his message? If the guy whose

skin, hair, and clothing is bleached completely white, would that help the

message? It would certainly help the message. The frightening ghostie fish guy arriving

to your town would get some attention. Okay, glimpse into my brain.

Moving on, Considering Jonah's reaction to God the first time God gives him a

commission go to Ninevah. Considering his reaction the first time, where he went

and paid a fair and went in the opposite direction, It's amazing that God

asks again, or commands or speaks again. The commission is simple, Get

up, dummy, go to the great city of Ninevah, and deliver the

message I have given you. The instructions are clear, the commission is indisputable,

and I would like to add my word great. This is a great

commission. This is a big responsibility, and it is incredibly clear. And

verse three tells us this time Jonah obeyed the lord's command, and he went

to Ninevah, a city so large it took three days to see it all.

I mean, it's not shocking he obeyed. He's got a recent experience

of being partially digested inside of a fish, and he doesn't want to experience

that again. So he got But just a word here about second chances.

You don't have to read very far in your Bible to come across the truth

that God gives second chances, that people who make a mistake or disobey or

completely rebel against God, if they will return to him, he will give

them a second chance. It's all over the Bible. I couldn't help but

wonder, though, wouldn't. I mean, not that we're God, but

if I were God, I don't know if I'd want to go with that

guy again. I think I'd want to choose somebody who as a little more

willing. I mean, God could have just wiped him out and said yep,

you lost, or at least found somebody who said, I will willing

lee go. But that is the God we're talking about here, the God

who speaks a second time. This is not our license to disobey. It's

not our license so that we can go. Well, I know God's going

to give me a second chance, because I want you to hear me say

this. In his grace he forgives, but in his government there are always

consequences attached to disobedience, and both are true, and both exist simultaneously.

Jonah has certainly reaped some of those consequences, and yet God has given him

a second chance to obey. So Jonah accepts the great commission. He gets

up off the ground, and he starts walking to Ninevah. Now, a

few things about Nineveh. And I know this may feel kind of pieced out,

but together we're going to paint a picture with all these little pieces,

so they're all important. A few things about Nineveh Ninevah. We're going to

use our word great here is described four times in this short little book as

great. Okay, that specific exact word great. And so the archaeologists,

historians, biblical scholars. They agree that the adjective great is well earned by

this city. Why is that number one? It's great in history. It

was founded by one of Noah's great grandsons, so it is ancient as ancient

can be. It's an ancient city. It has a lot of history,

and it has a vast wealth of people who have been in and out of

it, and it's expanded its territory over all of those years. In fact,

the size of this city alone, they say this circumference was about sixty

miles for an ancient city. That's mind boggling. And it was probably between

low end sixty thousand, high end one hundred and twenty sorry, sixty thousand

up to a million people. One million people is significant in any city,

but in an ancient city, this is a massive great city. From archaeology,

we know that one of the walls alone had a circumference of eight miles

and had fifteen hundred towers in that wall. Okay, this is a massively

great city. It's also great in its influence, or some would use the

words splendor, and splendor doesn't have to mean beauty. It's like awesomeness,

It was the capital and one of the leading cities of the nation of Assyria.

It was built near the Tigris River, but it also had a river

running straight through the middle of it. So the merchants and the trade that

happened in this city brought great wealth to it. And the people of this

city were greatly feared, which brings us to the third reason it was so

great. It was great in its sin, violence, war, atrocities.

We covered this last week, but if you missed it, beheading of people,

skinning people alive, taking their skinned bodies or their skins, and nailing

them to the wall of the city, raping, murdering, murdering babies.

They're guilty of all of it. We also covered a couple of weeks ago

that their worship of other gods was prevalent. We talked about the god ishtar

that they worshiped, but they also, and I found this fascinating, this

week, they worshiped the god Dagon, the fish god, which I just

thought, I mean, archaeologists have found idols and inscriptions and replicas of the

fish god Dagon in temples and palaces and on walls as they've dug up this

city. In some cases, he's represented as a man wearing a fish.

In some cases he is like a half man half fish, like a merman

kind of a thing. And in some cases he is just a fish,

in which case I want to ask, if you've ever wondered, like,

huh, God, why a fish in this story? Wouldn't it be amazing

if God had actually planned that the city who worshiped the fish God got a

prophet to come who was spit up by a fish to come deliver a message

from the real God. I mean, that's just a fun part it Come

on, I'm all over. But again, I'm painting a picture. So

one other piece of the picture that I want you to have is that there's

a commonly asked question amongst even Christians or believers in the Bible, but also

prevalently amongst skeptics, and that question is did a fish really small swallow Jonah?

Or is this just a story that we're supposed to learn from now there

apart from the Bible, there is no proof of Jonah being swallowed by a

fish, But there is a ton of collaborative evidence. Let me just give

you a couple of collaborative am I okay? Being nerdy history person. Okay,

in the third century BC, there was a priest and this he was

a priest and historian. His name was Barrosis, and he is recorded as

describing a mythical creature named Oannis who emerged from the sea to give divine wisdom

to the people of the city. Okay, this mythical creature who came out

of the sea named Oannis. Why does this man matter? Oannis is the

Assyrian way of saying yo anis, which is the Greek way of saying Yonah,

which is the Hebrew way of saying Jonah, which is English. Okay,

so this is all the way back. Now, this guy who is

this guy, he is somebody that would have done his research all the way

back to Assyria because this is ninevah's in Assyria. But although he lived in

the time that Babylon had conquered Assyria, and we're going to talk about that

in our next series, which is about Daniel, but Babylon retained records from

the Assyrian time period, and that's already been established in history. So this

guy gets his hands on this and he's able to verify that this Yona guy

emerged from the sea to deliver wisdom that's the first really cool thing. The

other piece is the city of Ninevah. Because it's so ancient, it had

been it had disappeared. Nobody could find it for years. But in the

mid eighteen hundreds some archaeologists decided to dig under these two hills, and they're

in Mosal, Iraq, And these two hills are named by their Iraqi or

Arabic names. So these are the local names given to these two hills under

which they found massive ruins of a great city and the local names. So

the two hills are called Kunik and nabby Unis, and nabby Unis is Arabic

for the prophet Jonah all in history. I mean, that's some pretty astounding

collaborative evidence. But let me add biblical evidence to that too. Jesus later

on, in one of his teachings is going to refer to himself like Jonah.

He's gonna say, like Jonah spent three days in the belly of a

fish, so the son of Man, so me I will spend three days

in a similar kind of sheel in death before I rise again. So Jesus

himself connected Jonah as factual evidence. And that's a lot of collaboration for us.

And that's some pretty fun stuff that you can go and study. And

if you have interest in that, I've attached resources and are what's next page

that you can study. But if we move on in the story, look

with me at verse four. Verse four describes the message of Jonah when he

arrives to Ninevah. The fishman has arrived, and he said, and it

says, on the day Jonah entered the city, he shouted to the crowds,

forty days from now, Ninevah will be destroyed. Forty days from now,

Ninevah will be destroyed. Forty days from now Ninevah will be destroyed.

From a human perspective, Jonah's commission is ridiculous. How does one guy,

a Jewish prophet in fact, go to the most frightening and the largest city

in the world at that time and declare this one sentence to a million people

that it would take it would take three days just to walk through the city,

let alone talk to every person there. And he shouts the message as

he walks. Did he say anything else? Like? Did he add in

his personal testimony? You know, guys, you should really listen to what

I have to say. I know him frightening to look at. Let me

tell you. Why does he say, if you don't obey, can I

tell you bad things will happen? Or does he say unless you repent,

you're going to be destroyed. Unless you repent? Does he add any hope

in there? Not that we see in the text. All we see is

this one sentence, forty days from now, Nineveh will be destroyed. I

read in light of this daunting task commission that Jonah has been given. I

read a quote in a commentary this week that said, the will of God

will never lead you to where the grace of God can't keep you and the

power of God can't use you. This was It was never about Jonah.

He was just the vessel or the vehicle God was going to use to deliver

his message. What we know of Jonah is whether he wanted to or not,

whether people had seen him be thrown up or not, whether he looked

ridiculous or not. No matter how he felt, we know he obeyed.

And when he obeyed and went to Nineveh and delivered the message, God did

the rest. God did the rest. It was never Jonah's task anyway,

to convict, or to bring judgment, or to deliver. Jonah's job was

to go and do what God told him to do. God's job was the

rest. Verses five through nine tell us how Ninevah responds to God's message through

Jonah. Look with me. At verse five, the people of Nineveh believed

God's message, and from the greatest to the least, they declared a fast,

and they put on burlap to show their sorrow. When the King of

Nineveh heard what Jonah was saying, he stepped down from his throne and took

off his royal robes. He dressed himself in burlap and sat on a heap

of ashes. Then the king and his nobles sent this decree throughout the city.

No one, not even the animals from your herds and flocks, may

eat or drink anything. People and animals alike must wear garments of mourning,

and everyone must pray earnestly to God. They must turn from their evil ways

and stop all their violence. Who can tell? Perhaps even yet God will

change his mind and hold back his fierce anger from destroy us. Just a

handful of words in Jonah's message, that's all that's recorded. No condition,

No if then not, if you repent, or if you don't repent just

a handful of words, and the people believe God's message. They believe it

is from God through Jonah for them, and they respond. It's an edict

for the entire city, for one million people, including their animals, to

humble themselves and cry out to God. There's an urgency to it, to

put mourning clothes on themselves and their animals, to turn from their evil,

to stop the violence, and to fast all people and all animals from all

food and all water. It was believed it was a matter of life and

death. And it was. And the king let me just read that again,

and ends his edict with the phrase who can tell? Perhaps even yet

God will change his mind and hold back his fierce anger from destroying us.

The city of Nineveh repented. Repent. It's a word that maybe you've heard

in church before, maybe you've used that word before. It just simply means

to turn. They turned from their back being to God and turned toward God.

Jonah's story of a great God with great power and a great storm and

a great fish and a great city of Ninevah leads to great repentance. In

fact, one of the greatest awakenings recorded in scripture. Is happening right here

in Ninevah. And the very thing we expect to be great in the midst

of all of this is noticeably absent, and that's God's great wrath instead.

Verse ten tells us that when God saw what they had done and how they

had put a stop to their evil ways, he changed his mind, or

their translations say, he relented, and he did not carry out the destruction

that he had planned or threatened. As we wrap up this message, let

me repeat to you the question that I lad with, which is who is

this great God of Jonah? Who is this god? Now certainly he is

a god of justice and wrath was certainly planned, destruction was certainly planned.

Who is this God that relents or changes his mind for the destruction that is

planned and for people that you and I would say absolutely deserved it. Why

didn't he destroyed Jonah? Why didn't he destroy the king of Assyria, who

led a city into the atrocities that he did? Why didn't he wipe out

the entire population? And why doesn't he destroy us? I just could this

week. I couldn't help but think that it's not a story about a great

storm or a great fish or a great city. They're pieces of the story.

It's a story about a great God. And it's a story about a

great God's great love and great patience and great forgiveness. And I want to

say it like this, This is a story about a great God and his

great love and his great patience and his great forgiveness for Nineveh, and it's

a God about It's a story about a great God with a great love and

a great compassion and a great patience and a great forgiveness for you and for

me. This great God, this picture that we have of a great God,

finds our repentance irresistible. This great God, who could have demonstrated his

great power again and just wiped the city off the map, who could frankly

wipe the you and I off a map, instead, finds our repentance irresistible.

Today we have the opportunity to experience what happens when we repent. And

what we experience is grace. Grace is you and I not getting what we

surely deserve. It is us experiencing God relenting from what we have coming to

us buy our own choices in the hell of our own making. So it

seemed fitting that we would end today by taking communion together. You should have

received communion elements when you walked in. If you didn't, you can just

slip your hand up in an usher will bring this to you. I mean

invite you to peel off the top portion and you'll find a cracker there,

awafer, If you'll go ahead and hold that in your hand. We're gonna

take this together, but we're going to pray together first. And as you're

holding that, I want to tie this together for you. Because Jesus,

before he was betrayed, arrested, tried, convicted, beaten, crucified,

had a meal with his closest friends and followers, his disciples, where he

took bread and he said stuff that they didn't understand. He broke the bread

and he gave it to them, and he said, this is my body

and it's broken for you. Do this when you eat bread, remember me.

Jesus is also the one who said, just like Jonah spent three days

in hell in death, so I also, when my body is broken and

my blood is spilled for you, will spend three days in hell for you.

And he adds this interesting peace when he says that, he says,

and if you don't repent. I'm paraphrasing the city of Ninevah. The people

of Ninevah will testify against you. And what he's saying is, if Ninevah

can turn from their wicked ways and you won't, they will receive what you

will not, which is grace, which is forgiveness, which is salvation.

I'm gonna ask you to buy your heads as you hold that wafer that represents

the body of Jesus, broken for you and broken for me, so that

we might experience salvation, rescue from what we surely deserve instead to find life

in Christ. And all we have to do is repent. It's quite simply

to turn from the way we've been headed and turned back to Jesus. So

if you're in this place and you would say, man, it is this

is timely I need to turn. And maybe you've never been in a church

before, and you don't even know the first thing about this relationship with Jesus.

And maybe you know you've been at the crossroads and you've been trying to

decide am I going to obey the Lord or not? And maybe you've run

far, far far from the Lord. It applies all of us. But

if that's you and you want to take this moment to repent. I want

to include you in a prayer. Would you just raise your hands so I

know who I'm praying for. All over this room, raise your hand if

you're gonna pray, great, Thank you, thank you, thank you.

You can put those down. Let's pray together God. Right now, we

are grateful for the opportunity to turn. We recognize that we disobey. We

recognize your justice requires payment for our disobedience. We recognize our tendency to run.

And some in this place would say, I recognize that I have run

far. Right now we turn back to you. We say, God,

would you forgive us? We repent. We turn back to you. Jesus,

thank you that you willingly went to the cross, that you allowed,

You gave your life as a sacrifice for your body to be broken so that

we might be in right relationship with God. And we receive that. Right

now, go ahead and take the cracker. Peel back the top of the

juice. It's juice, but it's not what it is. It's what it

represents, and what it represents is the blood of Jesus spilled that we might

have grace. It represents grace that we receive what we do not deserve.

We receive grace, we receive forgiveness, we receive right relationship with Jesus.

So just as you hold that, just take a second and just say thank

you Jesus for the grace. Thank you Jesus for forgiveness. I receive your

forgiveness. It's not about me deserving it, but I receive it. It's

in your name, we pray Jesus. Amen, you can go ahead and

take that. I'n to ask you to stand your feet with me. I

feel be so kind as to allow me to pray a blessing over you God

right now. I ask a blessing over this body of people. We represent

all kinds of stories, we're in all kinds of stages of relationship with You,

and yet we share the common denominator that we are here in this place

seeking You. So God, I ask a blessing. I asked that you

would lead us, that you would open doors of opportunity and then help us

to follow and obey. I asked that I pray that, and I believe

that over this room and online, and we say thank you in your name, Amen,