Key Thought : We may find it easier to make excuses for not participating in mission. Our motivation for these excuses could be one of many. The question is, how will you choose to answer God’s call?
November 4, 2023

A. Have a volunteer read Jonah 1:1-12.

1. Ask class members to share a short thought on what the most important point is in this passage.
2. What were some of the reasons Jonah didn’t want to go to Ninevah?
3. Personal Application: Have you ever felt like God wanted you to do or say the right thing, but you didn’t? Share your thoughts..
4. Case Study: One of your relatives states, “I’d love to help the church, give a Bible study, or participate in a mission project, but I am just too busy to be involved. I just don’t have enough time.” How would you respond to your relative?

B. Have a volunteer read Jonah 3.

1. Ask class members to share a thought on what the most important point in this text is.
2. How did the people respond to what Jonah had preached?
3. Personal Application: What sacrifice is God asking you to make, or be ready to make, for the sake of sharing Him with someone else? Share your thoughts
4. Case Study: One of your friends states, “What caused Ninevah to repent and believe God through His messenger?. Did the Holy Spirit work on their minds and hearts to change them? But didn’t God already know that they would later backslide and turn away and become so wicked He eventually destroyed them? So why did He delay His judgment here?” How would you respond to your friend?

C. Have a volunteer read Jonah 4:1-4.

1. Ask class members to share a short thought on what the most important point in this text is.
2. What was wrong with Jonah’s attitude and thoughts here?
3. Personal Application: What will we do about God’s concern for the wicked, the bullies, for the unreached, across the globe? Share your thoughts.
4. Case Study: One of your neighbors states: “Well, God is a merciful and loving God. He doesn’t want to punish people. He loves us. So we should love all people, no matter what they do or who they worship or how they worship.” How would you respond to your relative?

D. Have a volunteer read Isaiah 6:1-8.

1. Ask class members to share a thought on what the most important point in this text is.
2. What made the difference in Isaiah’s willingness to serve the Lord ?
3. Personal Application: Do we tend to willingly go when and where God calls us, or do we run in the opposite direction or do we just ignore the call?. Share your thoughts.
4. Case Study: Think of one person who needs to hear a message from this week’s lesson. Tell the class what you plan to do this week to share with them.

(Truth that is not lived, that is not imparted, loses its life-giving power, its healing virtue. Its blessings can be retained only as it is shared.”Ministry of Healing, p. 148).

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Daily Lesson for Monday 30th of October 2023

When the storm came, Jonah blamed himself (Jonah 1:1-12). His attitude does reveal something about the kind of worldview and understanding of God or “gods” that many had back then. While various gods, they believed, ruled in their various lands, the sea was deemed the chaotic realm of demons. In the worldview of the mariners, sacrifice was needed to appease their wrath. Although Jonah was a Hebrew, he quite possibly had a worldview that was influenced by the traditional beliefs of his times.

Although Jonah was running from the territory where the people claimed Jehovah as their God, he learned (the hard way) that even when he was traveling into foreign cultures, Jehovah was still sovereign. The wind and waves belonged to God. The fish, too. “The earth is the Lord’s, and all its fullness” (Psalms 24:1, NKJV). Jonah’s heart was turned to the Sovereign of earth and sea, and so he confessed and was saved.

We, too, can have misunderstandings about God and what He expects of us. One common misunderstanding is that God’s desire for us is to focus on our own salvation and to remove ourselves from the wickedness of the world around us. Though we are instructed to keep ourselves “unspotted from the world” (James 1:27, NKJV), our focus should be on how we can bring God’s blessings and hope to those in need.

Another misunderstanding that stops us from accepting God’s call into mission is believing that success depends on ourselves. We can no more save a soul than Jonah could save Nineveh. We can have a “savior” mentality about mission. Our call is not to do the saving but to cooperate with God in His saving work. We give testimony praising God for specific ways He is changing us, but only God can draw people to Himself. We can plant seeds of truth, but only God can convert the heart. We often confuse our role with God’s, which is enough to make anyone find an excuse not to witness. Yes, God used Jonah, but only God, not Jonah, turned Nineveh around.

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Daily Lesson for Sunday 29th of October 2023

One of the reasons Jonah may have been unwilling to go to Nineveh was fear. The Assyrians were a formidable foe, and Nineveh served as the capital of the kingdom.

“Among the cities of the ancient world in the days of divided Israel one of the greatest was Nineveh, the capital of the Assyrian realm. . . . In the time of its temporal prosperity Nineveh was a center of crime and wickedness. Inspiration has characterized it as ‘the bloody city, . . . full of lies and robbery.’ In figurative language the prophet Nahum compared the Ninevites to a cruel, ravenous lion. ‘Upon whom,’ he inquired, ‘hath not thy wickedness passed continually?’ Nahum 3:1,19.”—Ellen G. White, Prophets and Kings, p. 265.

Nineveh was a magnificent city. Historians tell us that Sennacherib greatly expanded the city, including building the huge southwestern palace that alone measured 1,650 feet by 794 feet. (503 by 242 meters) and contained at least 80 rooms. He also built 18 canals to bring water to the city from as far away as 40 miles (65 kilometers). Its size alone would have been intimidating.

But the Assyrians were also ruthless. In his account of the conquest of Babylon, Sennacherib boasted that he filled the streets with the corpses of its inhabitants, young and old, and relief carvings found during excavations depict scenes of soldiers impaling victims. These were not people you wanted to cross; they were not averse to using violence, and gratuitously cruelly, too, against those they didn’t like. Indeed, at the thought of walking among the masses of people in Nineveh, Jonah must have quaked with fear.

In spite of all of this, we often read Jonah’s story with disapproval for letting fear get in the way of carrying out God’s instructions. What we fail to realize is that we can do the same thing (i.e., allow ourselves to be controlled by our fears rather than by God).

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Why does Christ label “loving your neighbor” a new commandment? Join us as we discuss Lesson 4, Sharing God’s Mission.

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Daily Lesson for Saturday 28th of October 2023

Read for This Week’s Study

Jonah 1:1-17; Jonah 2:1-10; Jonah 3:1-10; Jonah 4:1-11; Nahum 1:1; 2 Kings 17:5-6; Psalms 24:1; James 1:27; Isaiah 6:1-8.

Memory Text:

“Also I heard the voice of the Lord, saying: ‘Whom shall I send, and who will go for Us?’ Then I said, ‘Here am I! Send me’ ” (Isaiah 6:8, NKJV).

Not everyone called to mission was as compliant as Abraham. Jonah is an example (read Jonah 1:1-17; Jonah 2:1-10; Jonah 3:1-10; Jonah 4:1-11). God called Jonah to cry out against Nineveh, capital of Assyria. This city, located in modern-day Iraq, was 560 miles from Jerusalem, a good month’s journey. Jonah not only refused to go—he ran in the opposite direction. Arriving at Joppa, he purchased passage to Tarshish, now southern Spain. Sailing the 2,000-mile trip would have taken at least a month, depending on the weather. Not wanting to confront the king of Assyria, Jonah uses the month it would have taken him to get to Nineveh to get away from it. Why would he, a man of God, have done that?

The Ninevites were notoriously wicked, a people known for their evil and cruelty and who had attacked Israel and Judah. Nevertheless, God called Jonah to go to Nineveh and to cry out against its great wickedness (Jonah 1:2). The wording here is very similar to the wording God used with Abraham regarding Sodom and Gomorrah, in Genesis 18:20-21. As we will see, however, Jonah was no Abraham.

What can we learn from Jonah’s attitude about the excuses that we can make in order not to do mission?

*Study this week’s lesson to prepare for Sabbath, November 4.

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