Jonah
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As I mentioned a couple of weeks ago it is my plan to spend these next couple of months in a series based on the books of the Old Testament that are known as the Minor Prophets
The name itself is unfortunate because it carries with it a connotation that these books somehow are less important than their counterparts which as known as the Major Prophets
Nothing could be farther from the truth as the message contained in these books is just as important as those in the major prophets and their ministry was no less significant than their contemporaries
Therefore I am calling this series, Major Messages from the Minor Prophets
There are 12 books that make up this category and the ONLY thing that separates them from the 4 major prophet books is their length
As you know we spent several years assisting Pastor Dave Gagnon in Bobcageon a number of years ago
Shortly after beginning our ministry there Pastor Dave began to refer to me as the major prophet and himself as the minor prophet
Well needless to say I was flattered until I realized it was because I preached longer than he did
The 12 books I’m concentrating on, as they appear in your Bible are, Hosea, Joel, Amos, Obadiah, Jonah, Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi
However the order that they appear in your Bible is not the order that they happened in history so I am going to go through them in their chronological order instead of their Biblical order
But don’t worry I’m not doing all 12 at once, we will take a look at one book a week over the coming few months
That means that we are going to start this morning with the book of Jonah
I’m sure that we are all familiar with Jonah’s story but let’s just review it again for a moment
Jonah’s story takes place around 800 B.C, a little more than 100 years after Israel had split into 2 kingdoms
Unlike the overwhelming majority of the prophets, we have no record that Jonah was ever called by God to speak to either of the Israeli kingdoms
Instead the book bearing his name begins,
The word of the Lord came to Jonah son of Amittai: “Go to the great city of Nineveh and preach against it, because its wickedness has come up before me.”
Nineveh was a city of the Assyrians, a nation that God had used many times to bring rebuke and correction upon the nation of Israel and as such Israel both hated and feared the Assyrians
Whether it was his fear or his hatred, we don’t know but the very next verse says,
But Jonah ran away from the Lord and headed for Tarshish. He went down to Joppa, where he found a ship bound for that port. After paying the fare, he went aboard and sailed for Tarshish to flee from the Lord.
Jonah :
And that brings me to the first lesson that I want to draw out of Jonah’s story, there will always be a boat ready willing and able to take you away from God’s will
For Jonah it was an actual boat that was sitting at the dock ready to cast off in the opposite direction he should have been going
For you and I chances are that it is not that dramatic or even that obvious but I can assure you this morning that there will always be a distraction that, if you allow it to, will take you in a different direction than God wants you to go
Now you might be thinking to yourself ‘Well that doesn’t apply to me because God has never called me to anything big like going to Nineveh.’
But I’m not just talking about the “BIG” things
God’s will for you is so much more comprehensive than just those big things
In fact His will for you encompasses every single area of your life
God’s will for you includes how you treat your spouse, your work ethic at your place of employment, the things that you spend your spare time on, the way that you love your neighbor, whether or not you tithe
Oh I lost some of you on that last one I think
Before I started to honour God with my tithe I had a hundred ships taking me in every possible direction as to why I couldn’t do what God had asked me to
Bills that needed to be paid, college that had to be finished, new marriage and with it new furniture needed and so on and so on
I can’t help with breakfast club at the school because I’m too busy, that’s a ship!
I can’t stop to help my neighbor because I’m too old, that’s a ship!
I can’t forgive because I’ve been hurt too bad, that’s a ship!
I can’t love because of my childhood, that’s a ship
Do you see what I mean?
There’s always a ship, there’s always an excuse at the ready as to why we shouldn’t or couldn’t live like Christ has called us to live
Now back to our story, so Jonah takes the ship bound for Tarshish but as they get out to see a terrible storm breaks out
So bad was it that these seasoned, veteran sailors were frightened for their lives and decided to cast lots to see who’s fault it was that this was happening
Of course the blame fell to Jonah and after trying everything else they knew, and at Jonah’s persistence the sailors threw him overboard and as soon as they did the see calmed
Oh I wish that I had the time to spend on this point but I don’t instead I want to bring to your attention what happened next,
Now the Lord provided a huge fish to swallow Jonah, and Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights.
Now the Lord provided a huge fish to swallow Jonah, and Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights.
From inside the fish Jonah prayed to the Lord his God. He said:
“In my distress I called to the Lord,
and he answered me.
From deep in the realm of the dead I called for help,
and you listened to my cry.
Jonah 1:17-2:1
The second lesson that I want to draw from this book is that even in our darkest moments, we can cry out to God and he hears us
Have you ever found yourself in the dark?
Now I don’t mean like when you shut the light off to go to bed because where we live there is far too much “light pollution” for that to be really dark, plus even with the lights out you know the layout well enough that you could make your way around if you had to
The kind of dark that I am talking about is complete blackness in a completely unfamiliar place
When I was serving on the fire department in Quadeville we got a call one night for a structure fire way out in the bush
My next door neighbor, who was also on the hall, and I responded with our pumper truck and began the half hour to 45 minute journey to get to this particular address
Now you have to understand something about the equipment we had, although the Ontario Fire Marshal mandates that no fire truck that is any older than 25 years shall be used in fire service, out of the 7 total trucks we had in the four halls, our pumper was the newest and it was closing in on 35 years old
So back to my story, the night was overcast so there were no stars or moon visible and as we made our way down a narrow back road with trees right up to the road on either side the worst thing possible happened
Without any warning. every light on the truck went out
EVERY light, headlights, signal lights, emergency lights, even the dash lights, in the blink of an eye we were in completely unfamiliar territory in the pitch black where you literally could not see anything
I don’t mind telling you that in that moment a feeling of complete panic comes over you
Jonah’s situation went from bad to worse as he went from the ship in the storm into the raging waters but he probably was thinking that it would all be over in a few moments as he sunk beneath the waves but before he could swallow his first breath of sea water he was plunged into complete blackness with no idea where he was or what was happening
Sometimes life throws us a curve an before we can even take a breath we find ourselves plunged into complete darkness
It might not always be a physical darkness, sometimes it might be a spiritual darkness or an emotional darkness
Whatever kind of darkness it is it overtakes us and we find ourselves in a predicament were fear and panic come over us because we don’t know where we are or how to navigate our way out
I want you to know that even in those moments, God has not left you but is right there next to you just like He was with Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego in the fiery furnace, Just like He was with Daniel in the lion’s den, just like He was with Stephen when he was being stoned and many other examples that we could give
David knew a thing or two about being in the darkness and he wrote,Paul was another man who experienced more than one ship wreck
When hard pressed, I cried to the Lord;
he brought me into a spacious place.
The Lord is with me; I will not be afraid.
What can mere mortals do to me?
Psalm 118:5-6
(ESV)
5 Out of my distress I called on the Lord;
the Lord answered me and set me free.
6 The Lord is on my side; I will not fear.
What can man do to me?
or as the Message Bible translates it
(The Message)
5–16 Pushed to the wall, I called to God;
from the wide open spaces, he answered.
God’s now at my side and I’m not afraid;
who would dare lay a hand on me?
And what of Paul who experienced not one but multiple shipwrecks as well as type of darkness we might imagine and yet he wrote
Romans 8:38-39
For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Even inside a giant fish the Lord had not abandoned Jonah and as Jonah cried out we read,
And the Lord commanded the fish, and it vomited Jonah onto dry land.
Jonah 2:10
Which brings me to our third lesson, where there’s His will, there’s a way
Consider the predicament that Jonah is in, keeping in mind that this book was written after the fact, because without any light Jonah had no way of predicting the passage of time, only later did he realize it had been three days but at the time it must have seemed like an eternity
The Jig was up and there was no hope for a happy ending for Jonah
He was probably smart enough to deduce that he had been swallowed by a great big fish, but he could tell how long he had been in there, where the fish had come from or where it had returned to
But keep in mind that the size of creature that would have been able to pull this off do not reside at the top of the ocean but inside they live in what is known as “The Midnight Zone” below 1000 meters depth where there is no sunlight and the pressures would kill a man
Although Jonah repented there was no hope of fulfilling God’s will and that had to be obvious to him
Let me rephrase that, there was no “EARTHLY” hope
Because where God’s will is concerned, God will always make a way
You already know what my favorite benediction is, it’s found in and says,
Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen.
Remember earlier when I said that there were many ships ready to take me away from tithing?
Well I can tell you in complete truthfulness as long as I have followed God’s will for me I have never encountered any of those “reasons”
My bank account hasn’t always been pretty, in fact some times it has looked like a fish spit it up (see ) but God has always provided a way
As for some of those other things that we listed earlier, let me tell you what Paul said in
And God is able to bless you abundantly, so that in all things at all times, having all that you need, you will abound in every good work.
(ESV)
8 And God is able to make all grace abound to you, so that having all sufficiency in all things at all times, you may abound in every good work.
Where there’s His will, there is a way if you will trust Him and walk according to His path
Well that’s only half the book of Jonah but where going to stop there and maybe we’ll pick up the rest of the story another time
For now just let me quickly fill you in on the details,
After the fish spit Jonah out he went to Nineveh and proclaimed God’s message, although still a bit reluctantly
Upon hearing his message, the king and all the people repented and God spared them much to Jonah’s dismay
The story concludes with God using the heat of the desert sun and a shady vine to teach Jonah a vital lesson about God’s great love for all of mankind
And that at a glance is the book of Jonah and a major message from that particular “minor” prophet
Let’s pray