Jonah obeyed the word of the Lord and went to Nineveh. Now Nineveh was a very large city; it took three days to go through it. Jonah began by going a day’s journey into the city, proclaiming, “Forty more days and Nineveh will be overthrown.” The Ninevites believed God. A fast was proclaimed, and all of them, from the greatest to the least, put on sackcloth.
When Jonah’s warning 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. This is the proclamation he issued in Nineveh:
“By the decree of the king and his nobles:
Do not let people or animals, herds or flocks, taste anything; do not let them eat or drink. But let people and animals 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.”
When God saw what they did and how they turned from their evil ways, he relented and did not bring on them the destruction he had threatened. (Jonah 3:1-10)
That is our Jonah.
He is so grateful for God and His mercy that he boldly sings and
praises God inside the whale. Once he
stands on shore, picking seaweed out of his hair, he is filled with sheer joy. Isaiah 40:27-31 puts this confidence beautifully:
Why do you say, Israel,
“My way is hidden from the Lord;
my cause is disregarded by my God”?
Have you not heard?
The Lord is the everlasting God,
the Creator of the ends of the earth.
He will not grow tired or weary,
and his understanding no one can fathom.
He gives strength to the weary
and increases the power of the weak.
Even youths grow tired and weary,
and young men stumble and fall;
but those who hope in the Lord
will renew their strength.
They will soar on wings like eagles;
they will run and not grow weary,
they will walk and not be faint.
It is God’s character, Who He is, that Isaiah is able to be confident in, for He created the universe in all its majesty. He alone gives strength to His weakened ones. It is also hope. It is not any hope, floating around out there, but hope in the One Who made the eagles and the wind that they soar upon. He will lift His children up. Isaiah reminds God’s people of His immeasurable love for them:
But Zion said, “The Lord has forsaken me,
the Lord has forgotten me.”
“Can a mother forget the baby at her breast
and have no compassion on the child she has borne?
Though she may forget,
I will not forget you!
See, I have engraved you on the palms of my hands;
your walls are ever before me.
Isaiah mentions how God has “engraved you on the palms” of
His hands. Have you ever considered that
Jesus, in His resurrected body, still bears the scars of His crucifixion? Why is that?
Thomas, one of His disciples, could not fathom how Jesus
could rise from the dead in the first place.
He demands that “Unless I see the nail marks in His hands and put my
finger where the nails were, and put my hand into His side, I will not believe
it.” (John 20:25 )
So, when Jesus appears to His disciples, He specifically
says to Thomas (He knows what Thomas said earlier), “Put
your finger here; see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it into my side.
Stop doubting and believe.” Thomas said
to him, “My Lord and my God!” (John 20:27-8)
So, when you are welcomed into Heaven, Jesus will reach out
and embrace you with those nail-scarred hands. When He looks down at those
scars, He thinks of you, and the love that drove Him to die for you. When you consider those scars, never doubt
that God loves you.
Jonah, standing on the beach, with the sun overhead and the
wind drying out his hair, can now personally confirm the words of David: “I am still confident of this: I will see the goodness of the Lord in the
land of the living. Wait for the Lord;
be strong and take heart and wait for the Lord.” (Ps. 27:13-14 NIV)
Our Jonah is now a walking testimony about the power of the
one true God. He stands there, mighty
not because of who he is (fish food, if the truth be told!) but because he is a
child of the God. Period.
David implores God for deliverance not only for himself (he
would certainly rather not perish at the hands of his enemies) but as a
testimony to God’s power:
Have mercy and lift me up from the gates of death,
that I may declare your praises
in the gates of Daughter Zion,
and there rejoice in your salvation. (Ps. 9:13-14)
David knew his enemies were formidable. But if he prevailed, it would demonstrate the mightiness and matchlessness of his God. Likewise, Jonah cannot claim he had anything to do with his deliverance. It was truly a God-thing. Jonah’s deliverance makes him a walking message. I am sure that word got around about this man of God whose disobedience caused a storm and then once in the ocean, an enormous fish swallowed him. Away went the storm. Ditto for Jonah.
Sailors get around and so do their stories. The sailors went
to many ports of call and their story of the man from Israel got told over and
over again. Unlike other fish stories,
this fish started out huge!
Jonah, like David, is going to be a witness to God’s
greatness by his very presence and words.
David saw his deliverance as an opportunity to praise God and then tell
of His greatness:
and call on the name of the Lord.
I will fulfill my vows to the Lord
in the presence of all his people,
in the courts of the house of the Lord—
in your midst, Jerusalem.
Praise the Lord.
God calls him again.
This time, Jonah listens and obeys.
Quite a 180-degree turn from the man who couldn’t book a
passage on a ship away from Nineveh fast enough. Quite a difference from the man who was so
afraid that he was willing to ignore God. What changed?
Nineveh hasn’t changed one bit. It’s still huge, scary and very heathen, with
its violent armies and nasty kings.
Jonah’s attitude has changed. He
is no longer afraid. His reputation
precedes him.
I see him walking up to a city gate of Nineveh, looking like
a fish out of water (pun intended!) because he’s a Hebrew in a pagan city. He
boldly walks in and announces: “Forty
more days and Nineveh will be overturned.” (3:4)
I am sure that the people around him stopped dead in their
tracks. Jonah is standing there, in the
hot sun, looking like a man who has stood the test of his character and
prevailed. He repented of his
disobedience and God restored him. God is now using him to reveal His truths
through Jonah’s mouth and very presence.
It’s funny how God works in and through us. He seeks our repentance, then our restoration
and then He uses us for His revelation.
Our fear leads us to disobedience. We ignore God and His hand on our lives. Once
we turn from ourselves to His power, we now center ourselves on His strength. We can solely depend on Him. We choose to obey Him. Now we know that His ways lead to life, and our
ways lead to darkness. We are
relying on the hope of His mercy and His strength.
Our lives are now a God-thing.
As Matthew Henry puts it in his commentary, “God’s making
use of us is the best evidence of his being at peace with us.”[2] He goes on to observe:
"Hope of mercy is the great encouragement and reformation;
and though there be but some glimmerings of hope mixed with great fears arising
from a sense of our own sinfulness, and unworthiness, and long abuse of divine
patience, yet they may serve to quicken and engage our serious repentance and
reformation. Let us boldly cast
ourselves at the footstool of free grace, resolving that if we should perish,
we will perish there; yet who knows but God will look upon us with compassion?" [3]
He does! Jonah can
testify to that! Look at Nineveh’s
reaction: “The Ninevites believed God.”
What makes the people stand up and repent? Is it the man standing before them? Is it the power of his voice? Is it the Power behind his voice? Is it that big fish story?
We don’t know, but they put feet to their repentance. They declare a fast and everyone puts on the
visible signs of repentance: sackcloth and ashes.
Then the king hears the news, takes off all of his royal
apparel and dons sackcloth and ashes as well.
Whoa. This is serious. While Jonah was in the belly of the whale,
the Lord wasn’t just working on Jonah’s heart.
He was working on the hearts of the people and the King of Nineveh as
well!
Remember I said that if God sends, He defends? Part of the defense He is laying out for you
is preparing the very path He is calling you to walk. How does He prepare the path? He softens the hearts of the listeners. He allows them to see the situation with a
new perspective. Maybe there is that one
person who no longer can stand how thirsty he or she is and you arrive with a
cup of water just in time. If you had
come earlier, that person wouldn’t have felt that thirst so acutely and would
have refused to listen to you.
Is the repentance of the people and the king sincere? Perhaps it’s a case of “no atheists in
foxholes.” They don’t want to perish, and they are placing their bets on this
man from Israel and his God. I believe
in God’s timing: Jonah delivers the message and they repent. That seems to be the way of Scripture. How long will the message’s impact
stick? In other words, how long will the
people stay repentant and walk in the knowledge of God? Good question!
This king knows exactly what he and the people must do: repent and change their behavior. These people have a reputation for
violence. Their enemies tremble at the very
name of the Assyrians. I am sure battles
weren’t even fought because other kings didn’t want to face the Assyrian army.
The king is giving up more than words here. He is giving up his nation’s reputation and its
fearful control over the region. He is
also challenging his people to ponder their evil ways. Jonah is ready to share with them exactly
what they need to do to stop acting in a manner abhorrent to God.
God never just says “Stop being evil!” and then walks
away. In the Old Testament, He sends His
prophets to elaborate on exactly what the evil is and how righteousness is to
be practiced. His prophets proclaim
God’s holy character, which provides the basis for His laws.
God’s holy laws are an extension of Himself. Do not lie, for God does not lie, for only
truth and justice fall from His lips.
Do not murder, for God does not engage in murder. Life is sacred, for God breathed into the
very nostrils of Adam His own holy breath, and mankind bears His image.
Do not commit adultery, for God is ever faithful to His
people.
Honor your parents, for honor undergirds respect. We are to respect our ultimate Parent, our
Heavenly Father. [4]
In teaching the people about the righteous ways of God, the
prophets teach them about His very nature.
God’s behavior is not distinct from His character. He truly practices
what He preaches, and preaches what He practices. This prophet, Jonah, will bear witness to
this. The king is seeking now to imitate
the nature of the God of Israel by practicing His ways. The king seems to
understand the connection between God’s justice and His mercy: “God may yet relent and with compassion turn
from his fierce anger so that we will not perish.” (3:9)
The king is carefully listening to Jonah’s teaching about
God. Now, looking within, the king
thinks: If I want my people to cease from their bad ways, I warn them
first. I then wait to see what they will
do. If they continue in their
disobedience, I pronounce judgment upon them and punish them. If I see change, then I stay my mighty hand,
and honor my word to be merciful. Thus, I will presume that this God of Jonah
will behave in a similar manner. He will
warn us and wait for our response. Good
call, king.
God, acting as the Mighty King, does just that: He sees their repentance, how “they turned
from their evil ways” and His compassionate Hand stretches forth. Destruction is averted.
But, wait! This just
in:
And now, ladies and
gentlemen, back down on the field at the Nineveh Bowl! As a cheer goes up from the crowd, we
celebrate the score for our Home Team! Go
Nineveh! Everyone is patting each other
on the back and shouting, “Good job!”
But wait, what is
this? I see a man leaving the
stadium. Just a minute! Hey, let’s get a close-up. Who is that? Wait!
It’s that man from Israel! The
Mighty Fish Boy! Is he walking out of the arena to buy some fish and chips? No! He appears to be stomping out of the stadium! He
looks furious! What is going on? All right, back to you up in the stands…
[1] Henry, p. 1179
[2] Henry, p. 1179.
[3] Henry, p. 1179.
[4]
Del Tackett, The Truth Project,
(Colorado Springs, Col: Focus on the Family, 2008), http://www.thetruthproject.org.
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