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Today we are looking at the life of Jonah over 4 Sundays, God willing.
What a book!
It is so unlike all the other books of the minor prophets.
This is one of 12 mini-books, as it were, which is why they are called minor.
Jonah and the others were not lesser prophets it is just that not so much was written in relation to them or recorded of what they said.
We come across Jonah in one other place in the Old Testament in:
The King of that time was Jeroboam who reigned from 786BC to 747BC.
This, then tells us when Jonah was around.
We have no written record of the actual prophecy that Jonah gave but it came to pass.
Not every word of God has been written down for us only that which is necessary for us.
God can speak to us through any number of instruments but normally and mainly through Scripture.
When we look at the New Testament Jesus mentioned Jonah on two or three separate occasions as we shall see as we go through this book.
Jesus called Jonah great.
And that might come as a surprise to us as we travel through this book!
I am sure that you already remember the story of Jonah from when you were kids but this is no kid story if all we remember is the great fish.
Jonah was a great man of faith.
His faith in God was truly remarkable and he had a grasp on what God was like.
So, let us pick up the story in the first chapter:
This book starts just like many of the other books of the prophets.
The Word of the Lord came to Jonah.
Jonah heard God speak.
Oh it is unmistakable when God speaks.
And Jonah did not doubt when he heard.
He just didn’t like what he heard.
Rarely does God speak and it be the very thing we want to do.
In fact, it is often the very opposite.
This could be in regard to a particular sin and say, stop doing that and go and sin no more.
Or, it could be that He will ask us to do something that puts us out of our comfort zone.
Or, it could be He asks us to give up something.
Or, it could be that He sends us somewhere we do not want to.
Now I could speak of my own calling to Swansea.
We did not want to come to Swansea to start with.
We wanted to be in or near London.
We wanted to be closer to my family and closer to the airport to go to Macedonia.
That is what we wanted.
We wanted to go East and possibly North.
Instead God wanted us to go West.
The opposite direction.
There was no doubt.
God made it happen that it was impossible to mistake His leading.
Perhaps, we could have held out, perhaps we could have forced to go elsewhere but instead the leading of God was easy - to Swansea we came.
Now Jonah’s way was being made easy.
It was to go East to a large city that was well known.
This was the easy way, the way of God’s leading.
But what do we find?
He starts to go West.
Maybe he heard the song: Go West Young Man.
I don’t know but all he knew was that he was not going to go where he was told to go.
Now this is incredible for a prophet.
He heard.
And he heard clearly.
He knew what God wanted him to do.
He was just not going to do it.
Oh I wish that we would all hear His voice and that without a doubt know what He is saying.
And, my friends, if you are a Christian, you do hear His voice:
Are you hearing?
I know that you are.
Perhaps, though, you are refusing to do what you hear.
Such was Jonah.
It is not that he did not know God had spoken to him.
He just didn’t want to go.
Why?
This might surprise you but it also goes to our very own hearts for this story is not here to titillate us and go tut tut about Jonah but go straight to piercing of our own heart and conscience.
Jonah was racist.
That’s why he did not want to go.
They were not Jews.
They did not worship the true God, they had their own gods.
He wanted them to be judged.
We will hear more on this as we go through this book.
Jonah goes and gets a boat from Israel to Spain.
From Joppa which is close to Tel-Aviv to close to Gibraltar.
He was going as far as it was possible in the known world from doing what he had been called to do.
Little did he or the merchant seamen know what kind of journey they were about to have.
Jonah is a sea story which has at its heart a great storm, one which threatened the lives of the crew.
Now we come to verse 4 which says: “The Lord let loose a hurricane on the ship”.
It was so bad that the ship was beginning to be torn apart.
And they all cry out to their gods to no avail.
But in the midst of this was one who was asleep, seemingly oblivious to this massive storm.
Does this remind of another time when this happened:
This story is more alike than we know thus far.
Jesus was sleeping with peace with God.
Jonah was also sleeping but a different reason.
I have noticed that Christians who sleep a lot, beyond the health reasons, is because they are avoiding God.
This passage gives us a stark picture of their fear of these seasoned sailors and of their desperate efforts to avoid shipwreck.
Jonah, their passenger, has not emerged with honour from the story so far.
He has rejected God’s call to go and preach to the people of distant Nineveh and in taking ship he is trying to escape the responsibility God has laid upon him.
But now the lot has been cast for they asked who is to blame for their scenario and this time there really was someone to blame, the stranger they had taken onboard with them: Jonah.
They ask a ton of questions.
Who are you?
What do you do? and so on.
In this he neglected to say that he is a prophet.
Jonah had thought that God is the God of Israel but what had been revealed to him is that God is inescapable.
Indeed, if Jonah had read the Psalms he would have already known for:
Now, with his new found knowledge, in the midst of this storm Jonah declared his fear of God who made Heaven and earth, land and sea.
And for the first time he accepted his fault and gave the solution.
Except the solution placed the responsibility upon those seafaring men.
And what honour they had.
They did not want to throw him overboard as he had said but wanted to save his life.
But the hurricane became even worse that in the end they had no choice.
They were worried about committing murder.
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