Runaway Prophet
Notes
Transcript
Runaway Prophet
Runaway Prophet
Now the word of the Lord came to Jonah the son of Amittai, saying, “Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and cry out against it; for their wickedness has come up before Me.” But Jonah arose to flee to Tarshish from the presence of the Lord. He went down to Joppa, and found a ship going to Tarshish; so he paid the fare, and went down into it, to go with them to Tarshish from the presence of the Lord.
Nineveh
Nineveh
Nineveh was an Assyrian city located on the eastern bank of the Tigris River, just down stream from the Kurdish mountains in modern day Mosul. It had 2 trade routes running through it. It was indeed an important city. The foul stench of Nineveh’s wickedness had made its way into heaven and God was not pleased at all! So God ordered Jonah, a prophet of the Lord, to go to Nineveh, a foreign land, and proclaim His judgment against it. Jonah didn’t like the assignment. Why?
The word of the Lord often came to prophets, and when it did, the prophets did what God instructed them to do. When God was looking for a messenger, Isaiah was quick to volunteer,
Also I heard the voice of the Lord, saying:
“Whom shall I send,
And who will go for Us?”
Then I said, “Here am I! Send me.”
But not this time. Why didn’t Jonah respond in kind?
Jonah’s silent objection may have been, “We’ve never done it that way before.” And Jonah was right. God had never sent a Jewish prophet to preach to a Gentile nation.
Jonah may have not liked the idea of traveling to preach to the pagans, his job was to preach to God’s people, not to the ungodly in Nineveh.
I’m sure Jonah would have been happy to have another plum job like he had 2 Kings 14:25,
He restored the territory of Israel from the entrance of Hamath to the Sea of the Arabah, according to the word of the Lord God of Israel, which He had spoken through His servant Jonah the son of Amittai, the prophet who was from Gath Hepher. For the Lord saw that the affliction of Israel was very bitter; and whether bond or free, there was no helper for Israel.
In this passage, Jonah was preaching to the people of God about the blessings he would give them. He was preaching good news to God’s people.
Jonah was a member of an “elite” club and he didn’t like the idea of inducting new members. He was afraid that if he preached to these Gentiles, they would repent and God would forgive their sins.
Jonah didn’t mind telling good news to the good people, but had no desire to travel to a foreign land to bring a sermon that he believed would result in a Gentile nation’s repentance and a compassionate God forgiving them their sins.
I get the feeling that Jonah didn’t mind the traveling, after all, he got on a ship to go to Tarshish, a distant land to the West of Joppa.
Further, his objection could not have been the content of the message: God’s judgment. Jonah seems like the pessimistic, dooms-day-type to me. If he was like most prejudiced people, he would gladly have condemned the evil people of Nineveh.
So what’s a prophet filled with prejudice to do?
Jonah Runs … but he can’t hide.
Jonah Runs … but he can’t hide.
Because God would not listen to his reason, Jonah the prophet became a runner. He ran to Joppa and headed for Tarshish, as he put it, he was running “from the presence of the Lord.” The book Prophets and Kings states From a human viewpoint it seemed as if nothing could be gained by proclaiming such a message in that proud city. He forgot for the moment that the God whom he served was all-wise and all-powerful. While he hesitated, still doubting, Satan overwhelmed him with discouragement. The prophet was seized with a great dread, and he “rose up to flee unto Tarshish.”
It is generally agreed that the Tarshish of the Bible was Tartessus on the southern coast of Spain. It had considerable wealth and carried on an extensive export trade with the Phoenician cit of Tyre. In that distant, busy place Jonah hoped to escape from his duty, and to still the voice of conscience. It was exactly the opposite direction from Nineveh.
Like “many” of the Lord’s “disciples,” Jonah found God’s command too “hard” to bear, and so, like them, he felt that in this instance at least he would not walk “with him” (John 6:60, 66). The prophet failed to realize that when God places a burden upon men to be discharged according to His pleasure, He strengthens them to bear it. With every divine command there comes the power to fulfill it. The prophet made the mistake of not putting “first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness” (see Matt. 6:33). Because he disliked the mission he was charged to undertake, he willing tried to separate himself from God’s service, thus putting himself in a position where, but for the divine intervening grace, he might have lost his soul.
Have you ever been disgusted with God? Perhaps, like Jonah you’ve been upset with God for showing mercy and favor to others. You know, like the older brother in the parable of the Prodigal Son, who said:
but he replied, ‘All these years I’ve slaved for you and never once refused to do a single thing you told me to. And in all that time you never gave me even one young goat for a feast with my friends.
Jonah, was the younger brother and the older brother p 104 rolled up into one. He was indignant and self righteous like the older brother, and immature and impetuous like the younger one. The more he stewed about God’s mercy toward the foreigners the firmer he became in his decision. Finally he decided to “just do it,” and he became a runner—he ran from the “presence of God.”
Jonah was fast asleep, believing he had escaped God’s grasp when his ship mates frantically awoke him to tell him he hadn’t. Let’s rejoin the text:
But the Lord hurled a powerful wind over the sea, causing a violent storm that threatened to break the ship apart. Fearing for their lives, the desperate sailors shouted to their gods for help and threw the cargo overboard to lighten the ship.
But all this time Jonah was sound asleep down in the hold. So the captain went down after him. “How can you sleep at a time like this?” he shouted. “Get up and pray to your god! Maybe he will pay attention to us and spare our lives.”
Then the crew cast lots to see which of them had offended the gods and caused the terrible storm. When they did this, the lots identified Jonah as the culprit. “Why has this awful storm come down on us?” they demanded. “Who are you? What is your line of work? What country are you from? What is your nationality?”
Jonah answered, “I am a Hebrew, and I worship the Lord, the God of heaven, who made the sea and the land.”
I like how the KJ states it “What meanest thou, O sleeper? arise, call upon thy God, if so be that God will think upon us, that we perish not.”
The Sailors get religion
The Sailors get religion
The all powerful, all knowing God who Jonah described as the “Lord God of heaven who made the sea and the dry land” hurled a great wind on the sea that caused a great storm.
The word in Hebrew for great is “gadol”. Uses of the word mean to be remarkable, to be out of the ordinary in degree, magnitude, or respect. If you look up the word wind in the Hebrew it is “Ruach”. It is used for Spirit 76 times, and spirit 127 times. If you combine remarkable out of the ordinary the word that is most often used for Spirit, this was a wind that will never come except by God’s hand. I would like to suggest that the Holy Spirit was generating this wind.
This wind was so remarkable enough, that the crew (a crew that had probably been all over the Mediterranean and seen all kinds of storms) believed that their ship would be lost without intervention. To lighten the load, they jettisoned the cargo. To rescue the ship, they fell on their knees and started praying to their gods. The captain of the ship awoke Jonah and asked him to do the same. “What meanest thou, O sleeper? arise, call upon thy God”
The crew cast lots to see who was to blame for the lost cargo and their imminent doom. Lots where objects that were cast to reach an impartial decision. It usually consisted of small stones labeled to reflected the possible outcomes of a decision. The lots they cast fell on Jonah. Jonah knew where this storm was coming from. The questions came spilling out. Why are you here, what line of work do you do, what country and people do you hail from, and the question that was upper most in there minds, why has this evil storm come upon us?!
His answer: “I am Hebrew. I worship the Lord God of heaven. He who has made the land and the sea”.
Next week, we will rejoin our Jonah in this drama, and I promise you, that the story will take on eminence proportions. But before we close, tell me, what do you think Jonah learned on his way to Tarshish?
On his journey, Jonah discovered that he could not escape God’s jurisdiction. Like the Psalmist, he found out that God is everywhere.
Where can I go from Your Spirit?
Or where can I flee from Your presence?
If I ascend into heaven, You are there;
If I make my bed in hell, behold, You are there.
If I take the wings of the morning,
And dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea,
Even there Your hand shall lead me,
And Your right hand shall hold me.
That thought is either very alarming or comforting to you, depending on which direction you are running. If you are running from God, it is alarming. It doesn’t matter how mad you are at Him or how unfair you think He is—He is God, and you can’t run from Him.
If you are running to Him, it is comforting. It doesn’t matter how bad you’ve blown it or how far you’ve wandered, He is here—ready to forgive you and provide for you. Like the loving father in the story of the Prodigal Son, God awaits your return. And the story of Jonah reminds us that we have been given something by God to do, we don’t want to wait for Him to come after us.