Key Thought: Jonah’s heart wasn’t in the right place, and consequently suffered from a lack of rest and peace. But God did not desert him, but led him to have more confidence in God.
September 18, 2021

1. Have a volunteer read Jonah 1:15-17.

1. Ask class members to share a short thought on what the most important point is in this passage.
2. Where did Jonah think he was going to find rest and peace from God?
3. Personal Application: Have you ever tried to avoid doing something for God that you knew that He wanted you to do? Share your thoughts.
4. Case Study: One of your relatives states, “If we are called to do something for God, and we choose not to do it, would God reach out to us like Jonah? If we didn’t do the task, who would miss out on the blessings the most: the people affected by our lack of action, or us for not doing it?” How would you respond to your friend?

2. Have a volunteer read Jonah 3:1-10.

1. Ask class members to share a thought on what the most important point in this text is.
2. How did Ninevah respond to Jonah’s preaching? Was it a surprise?
3. Personal Application: What lessons can we take for this ourselves in our attempts to witness to others? Share your thoughts
4. Case Study: One of your friends states, “What is repentance and why is it such an important part of being a Christian? Is repentance a one-time event or a continual action?” How would you respond to your friend?

3. Have a volunteer read Jonah 4:1-11.

1. Ask class members to share a short thought on what the main idea of this text is.
2. What was Jonah’s problem? What can we learn from his character flaws?
3. Personal Application: How can we learn to have the kind of compassion and patience that God has for others? How can we reflect it in our lives? Share your thoughts.
4. Case Study: One of your relatives states: “Was Jonah right about not wanting to preach to Ninevah? They were very evil and cruel and God eventually destroyed them anyway. It’s like today, why waste your time preaching to those who hate us, want to kill Christians, and live only to make other people miserable with their evil thoughts and deeds?“ How would you respond to your relative?

4. Have a volunteer read Jude 20-23.

1. Ask class members to share a short thought on what the main idea of this text is.
2. How are these verses similar to Jonah’s experience with Ninevah?
3. Personal Application: When witnessing to others, have you felt like it was similar to snatching one out of the fire? Have you felt the importance of being saved or lost in a person’s life based on the gospel message?” 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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Jonah’s flight from God was not without problems. His short-lived “rest” was disturbed when God miraculously intervened with the storm. Jonah is saved from a watery grave by God, who orders a fish to save Jonah.

However, it is only when Jonah finds himself in a forced three-day rest in the stomach of the big fish that he realizes how very dependent he is on God. Sometimes we have to be brought to the place where we don’t have anything that this world offers to lean on in order to realize that Jesus is who we really need.

Read Jonah’s prayer in the belly of the fish (see Jonah 2:1-9). What does he pray about?

Image © Kim Justinen from GoodSalt.com

Though he was there in the deep, in a very dangerous situation, Jonah, in his prayer, prays about the sanctuary. He will look toward “Your holy temple.”

What is going on here?

The temple forms a focal point of this prayer, and it should be the central point of prayer in general. There is primarily only one place in the Old Testament where God can be found. He is in the sanctuary (see Exodus 15:17, Exodus 25:8). The sanctuary is the central point of prayer and communion with God.

Yet, Jonah is not referencing the Jerusalem temple. Rather, he is talking about the heavenly sanctuary (Jonah 2:7). That’s where his hope exists, because that’s where God and the salvation He offers truly come from.

Jonah finally understands this important truth. He has experienced God’s grace. He has been saved. As the big fish spits him out, he understands firsthand about God’s love for him, a runaway prophet. He certainly has learned (even if not without some detours on the way) that the only safe course for any believer is to seek to be in God’s will.

So, now he decides to do his duty and obey God’s orders, finally heading for Nineveh, no doubt on faith, as he is heading toward an exceedingly wicked city whose citizens might not like this foreign prophet telling them just how bad they are.

<–Sunday Tuesday–>

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Rest. The word used most frequently in our Sabbath School Lesson pamphlet this quarter. “Thou shalt rest, Thou shalt rest!” These are words repeated each verse of 
Hymn 387 – Come, O Sabbath Day, our theme hymn for this quarter.

We could add to the theme 
Hymn 529 – Under His Wings. Each week of study this quarter, gives more and more of showing God’s deepest care for us, His children. As God’s children we find out about the Biblical family growing pains, and this still happens today. Yet, we are still “under His wings”.

We are so thankful that 
God Has Spoken By His Prophets – Hymn 413, including Jonah.

Jonah initially lacked the peace for which the world is longing. The hymns that help us have this peace are:
Hymn 463 – Peace, Perfect Peace,
Hymn 466 – Wonderful Peace,
Hymn 302 – Deeper Yet (verse 4), along with many others.

Having tried to flee to Tarshish, ending up in the belly of the great fish, Jonah was then ready to 
Trust and Obey – Hymn 590 and went on to Nineveh.

The people of Nineveh repented and believed, as in 
Hymn 486 – I Do Believe, or 
Hymn 511 – I Know Whom I Have Believed. They might have even prayed 
God Be Merciful to Me – Hymn 297.

Finally, I wonder if Jonah wished to sing 
Hymn 153 – Prince of Peace Control My Will and then sung the prayer hymn, 
Hymn 471 – Grant Us Your Peace.

Blessings for a wonderful week ahead.

To learn unknown hymns, you will find the accompaniment music for each one at: https://sdahymnals.com/Hymnal/

Another great resource is for when there is a hymn you wish to sing, but can’t find it in your hymnal. Go to https://www.sdahymnal.org and in the search bar type a special word in that is in the hymn. I am sure you will be amazed at the help you will be given.

2 Timothy 2:15 KJV – “Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.”

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Jonah was an amazingly successful missionary. At the same time, he was also a very reluctant one, at least at first. Whatever Jonah was doing, God’s call interrupted his life in a big way. Instead of taking God’s yoke upon his shoulders and discovering for himself that His yoke is easy and His burden light (Matthew 11:30), Jonah decided to find his own “rest,” and that was by running in the opposite direction from where God was calling him to go.

Where was Jonah hoping to find peace and rest from God’s call? How well did it work for him? Read Jonah 1:1-1:16.

Image © Kim Justinen from GoodSalt.com

Jonah sets off in the opposite direction to where God called Him. He doesn’t even stop to reason with God, as had many of the other Bible prophets when called to be God’s messengers (see, for example, Exodus 4:13).

Interestingly enough, this is not the first time that Jonah has been called to speak for God, as suggested by 2 Kings 14:25. In that case, however, Jonah appears to have done what the Lord had asked him to. Not this time, however.

Why?

Historical and archaeological records document the cruelty of the Neo-Assyrian overlords who dominated the ancient Near East during the eighth century B.C., the time that Jonah ministered in Israel. About 75 years later, the Neo-Assyrian king Sennacherib attacked Judah. Israel and Samaria already had fallen about twenty years earlier, and King Hezekiah apparently had joined a local anti-Assyrian coalition.

Now the time had come for the Assyrians to settle accounts. The Bible (2 Kings 18, Isaiah 36), historical Assyrian documents, and the wall reliefs of Sennacherib’s palace in Nineveh all tell us the cruel story about the fall of Lachish, one of the most important and well-fortified southern border fortresses of Hezekiah. In one inscription, Sennacherib claims to have taken more than two hundred thousand prisoners from 46 fortified cities that he claimed to have destroyed. When the Assyrian king took Lachish, hundreds or thousands of prisoners were impaled; hard-core supporters of King Hezekiah were flayed alive, while the rest were sent to Assyria as cheap slave labor.

The Assyrians could be incredibly cruel, even by the standards of the world at that time. And God was sending Jonah into the very heart of that empire?

Is it any wonder that Jonah didn’t want to go?

<–Sabbath Monday–>

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Sabbath Afternoon

Read for This Week’s Study: Jonah 1:1-4:11, Jeremiah 25:5, Ezekiel 14:6, Revelation 2:5, Luke 9:51-56, Jude 1-25.

Memory Text: “And 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?” (Jonah 4:11).

One of the most interesting stories in Scripture has to be that of Jonah. Here he was, a prophet of God, someone called of God, and yet — what? He runs away from God’s call. Then, after being persuaded in a dramatic way to change his mind and obey the Lord, he does so, but then only to do what? To complain that the people to whom he was called to witness actually repented and are spared the destruction that, otherwise, would have been theirs!

What an example of someone not at rest, not at peace — even to the point where he cries out, “Therefore now, O LORD, please take my life from me, for it is better for me to die than to live!” (Jonah 4:3).

Jesus Himself referred to the story of Jonah, saying: “The men of Nineveh will rise in the judgment with this generation and condemn it, because they repented at the preaching of Jonah; and indeed a greater than Jonah is here” (Matthew 12:41). Greater than Jonah, indeed! If not, He couldn’t be our Savior.

This week, let’s look at Jonah and what we can learn from his restlessness and lack of peace.

Study this week’s lesson to prepare for Sabbath, September 18.

Sunday–>

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