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The Story of Jonah for Grown-Ups, Part 3 

August 25, 2002

Sharing the Good News (?)

Jonah 3:1-10

I went to seminary in Chicago, and I remember a time when I was in rush-hour traffic. I was on the far left lane heading north on I-94, when I realized that this lane was going to take me out west on I-90 to the airport as opposed to north to where I lived. Try as much as I could, with all the cars in front, beside, and behind me, there was no way to get out of that lane. I was literally forced in a direction I did not want to go. I did not want to go west, but there were forces outside my control making me do it. When I arrived at Chicago O’Hare Airport, I thought, “Well, not exactly where I wanted to go! What am I going to do now that I am here? Maybe I can catch a flight home to Ohio.”

Jonah is the story of a man called by God to do a specific task, and this man’s consistent attempts to not do God’s will. Jonah was told by God to go east to the people of Nineveh (people who Jonah detested because they were “heathen”) and tell them some Good News: That if they would commit to changing their hearts of hatred and instead turn to God, God would forgive them in his mercy. 
But Jonah wants nothing to do with that. He makes every calculated effort to out-maneuver God. He runs away to the west, to Tarshish, but God brings a storm to stop him. He has the men on the boat throw him overboard so he would die, but God brings a giant fish to eat him before he can drown. He prays to God, trying to manipulate God into taking him back to Jerusalem, but God has the fish vomit Jonah onto dry land in the direction of Nineveh. God forces Jonah into the fast lane to the east—and Jonah has no choice but to go. 

Throughout this story, we’ve heard Jonah say words that seem to be the right things to say. But his actions betray what is really in his heart: Jonah says he fears God. Jonah says he knows God. But he does not do either. Amazingly, it is the people who are not members of God’s special people, let alone “prophets” who respond correctly with the little knowledge they can extract from Jonah!
We are starting to realize that Jonah is a case study in how not to be a Christian. And it is a case study in how God continues to do his amazing work of mercy and grace and love in spite of people like Jonah.

This brings us to chapter 3, where Jonah is brought back to the beginning of the story and given a second chance to carry out God’s will. Look at the first two verses:

Then the word of the LORD came to Jonah a second time: “Go to the great city of Nineveh and proclaim to it the message I give you.”

This gives some incredible insight into the character of God. God came to Jonah a second time and gives him the same mission. The God of the Bible (remember this is the Old Testament—so this is the consistent portrayal of God throughout the Bible) is a God of the second chance. He is the God who gives you and me and all the other Jonahs in the world second (and third and fourth and fifth…) chances, even when we have done nothing more than turn a deaf ear to his Word and pursued our own selfish agendas. God uses people who are repeat offenders—if he did not, none of us could serve him!

You have disobeyed him, and so have I. We have run away from God. Some of us, like Jonah, have run very, very far from God. Does God write us off? Does he disown us? 

No!

The God revealed in this Bible is a God of love and compassion and purpose. He disciplines us, to be sure, like a loving dad does for his children. But, having done that, he returns to us and tells us: “I have called you to a life grander than the little life you can come up with on your own. I have not only called you into an eternal life with me in heaven, I have called you to a mission here on earth! Your life means something in this huge cosmic mission that I am carrying out in this world. Sharing your faith with people so that they can also be a part of this incredible mission is not an optional add-on, it is the essence of what it means to be a Christian!”

As Brain McLaren said, God is calling all of us Jonahs to stop being “a part of the problem, and to join in being part of the solution.”

Think about this! James Montgomery Boice writes, “None of us would be where we are now in our Christian lives if God had not dealt thus with us. Oh, the greatness of the unmerited grace of God! We deserve nothing. Yet, we receive everything, even when we foolishly turn from it.”

Verse 3:
Jonah obeyed the word of the LORD and went to Nineveh. Now Nineveh was a very important city—a visit required three days. 

Ahh! Finally! This is the first (and last) time we hear that Jonah is actually obedient. Look carefully at the way he is obedient, however. He obeyed by finally going to Nineveh. 

But, that is the extent of his obedience. Don’t read too much into that word “obeyed.” Obeyed what? Simply this: The word of the Lord to go to Nineveh. What we are seeing is Jonah reluctantly, finally, going to where he has done everything in his power not to go.

Is this obedience, or is it Jonah in the fast lane to the west, with no choice but to go? The question that remains to be answered is this: What will Jonah do when he arrives there in Nineveh? Like me at O’Hare Airport, he’ll probably want to catch a flight home.

Look again at the end of verse 3.

Now Nineveh was a very important city—a visit required three days. 

The English translations miss the nuance in the original Hebrew: Literally, it reads, 

“Now Nineveh was a great city to God, a three-day-walk city.”

What made Nineveh “important?” Was it the size of the city? No. Was it the power it had in the Kingdom of Assyria? No. What made it “important” was that it was important to God! Why is this city important to God? Because it is filled with people who were created in His image, and who were ruining their lives and those around them with their destructive lives. This is the same attitude Jesus Christ showed in Matthew chapter 9, 

Jesus went through all the towns and villages, teaching in their synagogues, preaching the good news of the kingdom and healing every disease and sickness. When he saw the crowds, he had compassion on them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd. Then he said to his disciples, "The harvest is plentiful but the workers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field." (Matthew 9:35-38)

The people in Nineveh are the same as the people in your neighborhood, or in the inner city of Canton, or in the grunge band that plays too loud in the garage down the street, or the people who don’t look like they’d ever let their shadow anywhere near a church. The people of Nineveh and the people in those towns and villages in which Jesus traveled are the same as everyone (yes, everyone!) in Stark County. They are harassed by life, they are helpless to deal with the complications of living life in a fallen world, for they are like sheep without a shepherd, someone to lead them, care for them, feed them. 

The harvest in Nineveh was ready, but Jonah has kept refusing to be the worker in the harvest field. 
Nineveh is a “three-day-walk city.”

Look at verse 4:
Jonah began to go into the city one day’s walk; and he proclaimed, ‘Forty more days and Nineveh will be overturned!”

Now, the city of Nineveh is an important city to God—a three-day-walk city in God’s opinion. A three-day-walk city… And Jonah walked “one day’s walk.” Not exactly an all-out evangelism effort!

And check out the wonderful “Good News” of Jonah’s “Gospel Message:” “Forty more days and Nineveh will be overturned!” 

Yea? 

And…? 

That’s it?!

Just eight words in English. Just five words in Hebrew. 

Great! What a wonderful example of evangelism! If somebody were to come into my neighborhood one Saturday morning and yell up and down the street, “In a month you’re going to be destroyed!” I think I’d want to become a Christian!

There is nothing in Jonah’s message about what they should do about it! Is this what God intended Jonah to do? Or is it another Jonahism? We’ve seen a lot of Jonahisms: Jonah almost sounding godly; Jonah taking the Word of God and manipulating it to say not what God intends but what Jonah intends. 

Here, again, Jonah takes the Word of God and keeps only that part which he likes, so that it says only what Jonah wants it to say. Certainly, God told Jonah to tell the Ninevites that if they do not turn from their incredible wickedness of mass murder and rape and destruction of everything it means to be civilized, dignified human beings, he would overturn them. But God does not seek to do this—he seeks to see the Ninevites turn to God for forgiveness and mercy.

Jonah’s mode of operation is a lot different from another Prophet, Jeremiah, who proclaimed to whole Word of God: 

“If at any time I announce that a nation or kingdom is to be uprooted, torn down and destroyed, and if that nation I warned repents of its evil, then I will relent and not inflict on it the disaster I had planned.” (Jeremiah 18:7-8).

Jonah takes the part he likes—“these Ninevites deserve to be destroyed”—and that’s all he tells them—he doesn’t let them in on what they need to do to keep this from happening. He uses God’s Word for his own agenda.

By the way, for us, “using” Scripture is not something to be proud of, but something to repent of. 
Jonah basically says, “I’ll give ‘em a Word from God! POW! You’re destroyed! HAH!”

Look at what happens next. It is really close to unbelievable. Verse 5:
The Ninevites believed God. They declared a fast, and all of them, from the greatest to the least, put on sackcloth.

The text says that the people in Nineveh believed God. Not Jonah, but God. Faith is not based in believing the messenger, but in believing God, which is a good thing here, since Jonah’s message was so short and lacked any compassion. 

This shows us something amazing about God and His purposes. God’s will shall not be thwarted! God can still do His will in spite of Jonah’s failure to do God’s will. This gives me comfort, for even when I am trying very hard to submit to God’s will, I inevitably mess something up along the way…but God is still able to bring it all together for the good.

Now look at verse 6:
When the news reached the king of Nineveh, he rose from his throne, took off his royal robes, covered himself with sackcloth and sat down in the dust. 

Again, the contrast is astounding! The King “rose,” the same wording for what Jonah did when the news first reached him. But whereas Jonah “rose up to flee to Tarshish from the presence of the LORD” (Jonah 1:3), what does this wicked, pagan, heathen king do? He “rose from his throne, took off his royal robes (the symbol of his power), covered himself with sackcloth and sat down in the dust (a symbol of his repentance).” 

This is the constant theme throughout this book. Jonah has more light than the entire unbelieving world around him, but does nothing with it. The people in the unbelieving world around Jonah get only a sliver of light and do a LOT with it! Look at verses 7-9 and witness the genuine repentance in the city of Nineveh!

Then he issued a proclamation in Nineveh:
“By the decree of the king and his nobles:
Do not let any man or beast, herd or flock, taste anything; do not let them eat or drink. But let man and beast be covered with sackcloth. Let everyone call urgently on God. Let them give up their evil ways and their violence. Who knows? God may yet relent and with compassion turn from his fierce anger so that we will not perish.”

The king calls for repentance throughout the kingdom, even though he doesn’t know if it will do any good! 

He says, “Who knows? God may yet relent and with compassion turn from his fierce anger so that we will not perish.”

Who knows? 

Who knows?!?

Jonah knows! Jonah knows--but he’s not sharing it! Jonah knows but he’s not repenting! 

Jonah knows…And we do to. And there are people in your and my lives that do not know. And they are asking themselves, “Who knows about this God-stuff? Who knows what is real and true and genuine faith? Who knows what it takes to connect with God? Who knows how I can get satisfaction in life? Who knows what it takes to raise children in a world that is so threatening to them? Who knows how I get past this divorce? Who knows how I can handle the death of my loved-one? Who knows what the meaning of life is?

The problem facing us is this:

For too long, Christians have not been the safe people to ask these questions. We have been “one-day-walk” evangelists, instead of “three-day-walk” Christians.

Evangelism gets a bad name today exactly because too much of it has been Jonah-like evangelism. Jonah-like evangelism is taking a “three-day-walk” message of hope and love and compassion and grace and mercy and turning that it into a “one-day-walk” message of condemnation and damnation and destruction.

The message of Jesus Christ is a “three-day-walk” message—a message to be communicated on a journey of conversation, of walking side-by-side with people and listening as much as telling, a “three-day-walk” message of caring and sharing and serving, a “three-day-message” that respects that people need to come to faith through a process, not just a quickie decision that will “buy their ticket out of Hell,” a “three-day-walk” message that is shown as much as spoken, displaying the love of Christ in our actions and words as we develop authentic spiritual friendships with people. The message of Jesus Christ is a “three-day-walk” message, committed to going the full distance with people in genuine relationships. 

Sometimes we think of evangelism as a “one-day-walk” deal. We feel the burden of the call to evangelize our world, but we are unwilling to go the distance it will take to do it well. We hope that we can do it quick-and-without-entanglements. We are scared of actually getting involved in people’s lives, frightened of seeking genuine ways to show Christ-like love in spiritual friendship with people. We are not so sure that we actually want to care about how people’s lives are messed up and how we can help and show compassion in the midst of that. That can get “messy.” 

We’d rather take that “one-day-walk” approach: “Here’s the gospel. Take it or leave it. And if you don’t accept it, I’m moving on. I don’t want to spend the time to get to know you, to get to love you, to get to serve you, to get to show you the compassion of Jesus Christ.”

But that is exactly why people who are asking the “Who knows?” questions are not coming to us to work through these questions. We need to commit to becoming “three-day-walk” Christians. Or, better, maybe “three-year-walk” Christians, or “30-year-walk” Christians—whatever it takes to establish genuine relationships with people so that they can not only hear, but feel and know the love of Christ through us. 

The chapter ends in verse 10 with God indeed showing compassion:
When God saw what they did and how they turned from their evil ways, he had compassion and did not bring upon them the destruction he had threatened.

In the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus said this concerning the people of his day:
“The people of Nineveh will rise up against this generation on judgment day and condemn it, because they repented at the preaching of Jonah. And now someone greater than Jonah is here—and you refuse to repent.” (Matthew 12:31)

Jesus was rightfully dismayed at the people of his day—there He was, God in the flesh; there he was, preaching about the glory and beauty of being in the Kingdom of God; there he was, the living embodiment of God’s love and compassion, the one who in John 3:17 is said to have come into the world not to condemn the world but to save the world, and what did they do with that message and that messenger? 

They mocked him, they beat him, they killed him upon a cross. 

Someone greater than Jonah is here--right here, right now. 

His name is Jesus. 

He is greater than Jonah, for his message is not one of destruction, but of redemption. For if he had simply died upon that cross, then that might be that. But this Jesus arose from the grave. Jesus, on that first Easter Sunday, was resurrected, offering you hope of a resurrected life as well—
A resurrected life that can start today. 

You may feel that God could never forgive you. Not with your history. 

But that is exactly what this Ninevite King thought too. He still repented. He still hoped for God’s compassion. He said, “Who knows? God may yet relent and with compassion turn from his fierce anger so that we will not perish.”

And looked what happened (verse 10):
"When God saw what they did and how they turned from their evil ways, he had compassion and did not bring upon them the destruction he had threatened."

This is the Good News of Jesus Christ. Those who deserve destruction are shown compassion, all because of Jesus.

Remember, in John 3:17-18, Jesus says, 
“God did not send his Son into the world to condemn it, but to save it. There is no judgment awaiting those who trust him.” (John 3:17-18a)

And in Romans, Paul makes it plain:
“We are made right in God’s sight when we trust in Jesus Christ to take away our sins. And we all can be saved in this same way, no matter who we are or what we have done.” (Romans 3:22)

Who knows if God will relent? 

You now know. 

So you can now trust him for his compassion shown through Jesus Christ!

Back to Jonah

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