Closer To Heaven
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You can view an in-depth discussion of The Restless Prophet in the Hope Sabbath School class led by Pastor Derek Morris. Click on the image to view:
With thanks to Hope Channel – Television that will change your life.
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Jonah seems to be more trouble than he is worth. Nineveh was dangerous, but in the story of Jonah the Ninevites don’t seem to be the problem. They understand the message and quickly repent. Jonah, the missionary, seems to be the weak link in this mission story.
In this account, God pursues a reluctant prophet because He knows that Jonah needed the missionary trip to Nineveh as much as the Ninevites needed to hear the missionary’s message.
Image © Kevin Carden at Goodsalt.com
In his short book in the New Testament, Jude tells us in Jude 21 to “keep yourselves in God’s love as you wait for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ to bring you to eternal life” (NIV).
Experiencing God’s love and grace personally is not a one-time event. One sure way to “keep yourselves in God’s love” is to reach out to others. In the next verses Jude tells us to “be merciful,” and “save” others by “snatching them from the fire” (NIV).
God called Jonah to go to Nineveh because Jonah probably hadn’t spent much time thinking about his relationship to the Assyrians before this particular call. He probably knew that he didn’t like them, but he had no idea of how much he hated them or the extremes he would go through in order to avoid them, even after he got the call. Jonah wasn’t ready to have a Ninevite as a next-door neighbor in heaven. Jonah hadn’t learned to love as God loves. God calls Jonah to go to Nineveh because God loves the Ninevites and wants them in His kingdom. But God also calls Jonah because God loves Jonah. He wants Jonah to grow and become more like Him as they work together. God wants Jonah to find the true rest that comes only by being in a saving relationship with Him and by doing God’s will, which includes reaching out to others and pointing them to the faith and hope that we have.
| How much time do you spend working for the salvation of others? In a spiritual sense, how does this kind of work lead us to find true rest in Jesus? |
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Unfortunately, the story of Jonah doesn’t end with chapter 3.
Image © Kim Justinen at Goodsalt.com
Jonah 4 begins with Jonah’s anger toward God because his mission outreach was so successful. Jonah is worried about looking foolish. We find God taking the time to talk to and reason with His prophet, who behaves like a toddler having a temper tantrum.
Here is evidence that true followers of God — even prophets — may have some growing and overcoming yet to do.
“When Jonah learned of God’s purpose to spare the city that, notwithstanding its wickedness, had been led to repent in sackcloth and ashes, he should have been the first to rejoice because of God’s amazing grace; but instead he allowed his mind to dwell upon the possibility of his being regarded as a false prophet. Jealous of his reputation, he lost sight of the infinitely greater value of the souls in that wretched city.” — Ellen G. White, Prophets and Kings, p. 271.
God’s patience with His prophet is astounding. He seems intent on using Jonah, and when Jonah runs away, God sends the storm and the fish to bring the runaway back. And even now, again, when Jonah is being contrary, God seeks to reason with Jonah and his bad attitude, saying to him: “Is it right for you to be angry?” (Jonah 4:4).
“God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life” (John 3:16) or, as God puts it in Jonah 4:11: “Should I not pity Nineveh, that great city, in which are more than one hundred and twenty thousand persons who cannot discern between their right hand and their left — and much livestock?” (NKJV). How grateful we should be that, in the end, God — and not we ourselves — is the ultimate Judge of hearts and minds and motives.
| How can we learn to have the kind of compassion and patience for others that God has, or at least to learn to reflect that compassion and patience? |
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Just a few years ago, I was meeting a friend from church at the bank to handle some church business. I parked my car in what I thought was a secluded area of the parking lot, away from the other cars. My friend followed behind in her car, and for reasons I still do not know, sideswiped the back of my car as she parked next to my car! All she did was scrape some of the paint, but I was upset by the senseless destruction. There was no reason! She could have parked anywhere else where she would have had plenty of room, but no! She had to park right next to my car, and then hit it. She said she was sorry and would pay for it. But as I kept playing the scenario over in my mind, it just upset me that what happened to my poor car was so needless and senseless. It never should have happened.
Photograph by William Earnhardt
Later that night I called my lifelong friend back home, so I could vent. (After all, I wasn’t going to gossip about it to my church family or anyone who knew her.) I told my friend back home all the tragic details but assured her my friend would pay for it. After listening, my friend replied, “William do you remember when I bought my brand new red Pontiac Fiero not long after we graduated from high school?” I replied, “Oh no! I remember now! Don’t remind me.” My friend still continued, “Remember at church while it was still new, you parked next to me and side scraped it as you left church ? Do you remember how you offered to pay to fix it, but I knew you didn’t have the money so I just forgave you?”
Immediately I realized that, out of all my friends on earth, God directed me to call this particular friend – the only friend whose car I have ever damaged the exact same way it just happened to me! A friend since early childhood who freely forgave me and never held a grudge. As a matter of fact in the 35 years since I side-swiped her car in the church parking lot, she never mentioned it once. That is until I told her that I was having trouble forgiving someone who did the exact same thing to me. Then she had to remind me that I had been forgiven, so I must forgive also. It was like the forgiving master telling his unforgiving servant,
Shouldn’t you have mercy on your fellow servant, just as I had mercy on you?’ Matthew 18:33 NLT
I found it was a lot easier to forgive someone once I realized I had been forgiven for the exact same thing. It was good that my friend forgave me and forgot about it, but when my other friend accidentally did the same thing to my car, I should have remembered on my own, how freely I had been forgiven and then freely forgave my friend.
For example, Jonah was upset with God for being merciful on such a wicked city, forgetting that the same mercy that spared Nineveh was the same mercy that provided the fish to save him. Jonah should have rejoiced that the same mercy that saved him also saved a wicked city. Maybe Jonah forgot about the mercy that had been shown him.
When we remember all the things we have been forgiven it makes it so much easier to forgive others.
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Compared to any city or town in Israel, Nineveh is a huge city. It is an “exceedingly great city, a three-day journey in extent” (Jonah 3:3).
Image © Lars Justinen Goodsalt.com
While walking the city, Jonah proclaims God’s message: “Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown!” (Jonah 3:4). The message is right to the point. Though the details are not given, it becomes clear that the message falls on receptive ears, and the people of Nineveh (collectively!) believe Jonah’s words of warning.
In a typical near eastern manner, a decree is declared by the king of Nineveh in order to demonstrate a change of heart. Everyone — including animals — has to fast and mourn (how animals mourn, the text doesn’t say). The king steps down from his throne and sits in the dust of the ground, a very important symbolic act.
The sermon was short, to the point, but filled with correct theology regarding true repentance. While Jonah had been preaching, the Holy Spirit must have been hard at work in the hearts of the Ninevites.
The Ninevites did not have the benefit of all the stories of God’s tender leading that the Israelites had, and yet, they still responded to Him in a positive manner. They are saying in effect, “Let’s throw ourselves on God’s mercy, not on our own accomplishments! Let’s rely completely on His goodness and grace.”
Strangely, Jonah, who has experienced God’s grace for himself personally firsthand, seems to think that God’s grace is something so exclusive that only some may have opportunity to rest in it.
| Why is repentance such a crucial part of the Christian experience? What does it mean truly to repent of our sins, especially the sins that we commit over and over again? |
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