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Brendan's Bytes: Jonah
5 Plays4 months ago
Brendan teaches on Jonah
This is the second podcast of From Dublin to Cleveland!
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Transcript
Introduction to Jonah's Story
00:00:02
Speaker
Hey there, everybody. bodsy You're very welcome. I'm Brendan Thomas Merritt. Today we're going to look at the story of Jonah. Jonah is a short but captivating and world-famous book.
00:00:16
Speaker
It's got four chapters and 48 verses. It is full of melodrama, suspense, twists, and turns.
00:00:27
Speaker
And though God spent 2000 years dealing with the whole of the human race between Adam and Eve and the Tower of Babel, and about 2000 years between Abraham and the ministry of the 12 apostles dealing with the nation of Israel, and then he turned his attention to us, the Gentiles.
God's Focus on Israel and Gentile Exceptions
00:00:49
Speaker
Jonah is a beautiful story that took place while Israel was his main focus. But the Ninevites were among the Gentile exceptions, up there with Rahab, prostitute of Jericho, Naaman, Ruth, the Moabites, and even Emperor Nebuchadnezzar of the Babylonian Empire.
00:01:15
Speaker
Jonah is a story of contrasts. It shows God's greatness and man's weakness and frailty. It shows the compassion of God and the petty selfishness of humans.
Compassion vs. Human Frailty
00:01:32
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It shows a God who actively pursues his people at his ends and people who are absolutely bent on outrunning him and a city who is so incredibly wicked that heaven itself was rigged against them.
00:01:49
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At least that was the appearance. But he repented. And because of that repentance, won themselves back 150 years.
00:02:03
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So let's start with Jonah. Jonah's name means dove. And he was a prophet from Gathhepper, which literally means the winepress of the digging.
00:02:15
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A town a few miles north of Nazareth. He belongs to the tribe of Zebulun, and he ministered during the reign of King Jeroboam II, which is about 786 to 746 BC.
Nineveh's Historical Significance
00:02:34
Speaker
Nineveh was located um the east bank of the Tigris River, opposite the modern city of Musul in Iraq. It was one of the great cities of the ancient world until eventually in 612 BC, a conglomerate of Babylonians, Medes, Persians, Chaldeans, Scythians, and Cimmerians came and obliterated it.
00:03:06
Speaker
In our story today, the destruction of Nineveh almost happened a great swell of time beforehand. Because of their repentance, they were able to buy back the time.
00:03:19
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Think of how when Jesus and the disciples were on their boat and it looked like it was going to sink, but Jesus calmed the waves and the wind. And next thing it says, immediately the boat was on the other side of the sea, even though it had only been a few miles out earlier in the story. Or think of how Hezekiah almost died But he repented and the Lord bought him back an extra decade and a half.
00:03:51
Speaker
When you get right with God, he has this incredible a ability to pay you back the time. Two books of the Bible speak about the great city of Nineveh.
00:04:03
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Jonah speaks of its destruction, but ultimately its repentance and its salvation.
00:04:10
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But later on, we get to the minor prophets of Nahum, who prophesied his destruction, which occurred because they did not heed God's warning. Like I said earlier, the story of Jonah is world famous and it is beloved by all age groups.
00:04:26
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Children especially you just love the idea of a man getting swallowed up by big fish and then getting spat out on the shore afterwards. But even literary giants also can't help but commend it.
00:04:40
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The English novelist, for instance, Charles Reed commented that Jonah is the most beautiful story ever written in so small a compass.
00:04:52
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The phrase, the word of the Lord, appears 92 times in the Bible. But actually, Jonah is the only book that opens with it.
00:05:03
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That expression comes twice, which should not be a surprise because Jonah was a prophet, but actually it comes at the very start and then a little bit later on, and it basically governs the structure of the story.
God's Involvement in Human Affairs
00:05:16
Speaker
All of the action and the drama, the suspense, the twists and turns are sandwiched between revelation of the word of God. Let's take a quick look at Jonah 1 and Jonah 3. Jonah 1 donah one Verses 1-2 says, Now the words of the Lord came on to Jonah, the son of Amittai, saying, Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and cry against it, for their wickedness has come up before me.
00:05:50
Speaker
Jonah 3, 1-2 says, one to two And the word of the Lord came on to Jonah the second time, saying, Arise, go on to Nineveh, that great city, and preach on to it the preaching that I bid thee.
00:06:07
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So here we can see some repetition. We can see arise, go, and cry. you know, some people have this idea that God is a very hands-off God.
00:06:23
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We call this the Newtonian philosophy of God, that he created this world, this great clock, and was then hands off, just let it carry on by itself.
00:06:37
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And he's in no way interested or invested. There's no real room there miracle work and power, for God's intervention.
Jonah's Flight from God's Call
00:06:48
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But um he just kind lets the whole thing play at brought out by itself. But nothing could be further from the truth. In fact, that is the opposite of what the Bible says. The Bible talks about a God who is interested and invested in human politics, interested and invested in human relationships.
00:07:09
Speaker
More than that, interested and invested in relationships with humans, interested and invested in the spiritual warfare that takes on, that takes place all around us.
00:07:21
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in the supernatural first, then spills over so often into the natural. He's interested and crime rates. He's interested and what's going on behind closed doors at your local church.
00:07:37
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He's interested in the wickedness and the vile corruption that just seeds through villages, towns, cities, and nations.
00:07:49
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And his heart is to save. His heart is to deliver. His heart is for people to cross over from death to life. And when he saw the absolute repugnance that was taking place in Nineveh, that's what compelled him to send Jonah, a prophet, to actually speak a word of correction and a warning.
00:08:14
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But his harsh attitude was compassion. He was compelled by his own compassion to see them saved and set free, to break off the yoke of sin that so easily entangles.
00:08:26
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But Jonah, though he was a prophet, did not have a lot of faith. In fact, he was overcome with fear and other things, which we'll look at later. And when he received this word, he did not want to share it.
00:08:40
Speaker
So instead, he decided outrun it. And he hopped in a boat and said, take me to Tarshish. And he hid there amongst Gentile sailors, sailors who did not know God, who did not have a relationship with God, in the hope of getting as far away from the call of God in his life as possible.
00:09:01
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Some people might wonder why Jonah had this reaction. Well, Nineveh was the capital city of the Assyrian Empire, which in Jonah's day were the big bad, the ultimate threat.
00:09:14
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So they were a city who worshiped idols and everything that comes along with that. There's always human sacrifice, murder, attacks against the most vulnerable people in society.
00:09:26
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And you know what? He probably felt incredibly spooked. And we also later learned that he just thought they didn't deserve redemption. They didn't deserve the chance at course correction to getting right with God.
00:09:40
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But Jonah was a fool to think he could outrun God. Psalm 139 makes it crystal clear that no matter what we do or where we go, you cannot outrun God.
00:09:55
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It reads, you have searched me, Lord, and know me. You know when I sit and when I rise, you perceive my thoughts from afar.
God's Omnipresence and Knowledge
00:10:06
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You discern my going out and my lying down.
00:10:10
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You are familiar with all my ways. Before a word is on my tongue, you, Lord, know it completely. You hand me in behind and before and you lay your hands upon me.
00:10:25
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Such knowledge is too wonderful for me, too lofty for me to attain. Where can I go from your spirit? Where can I flee from your presence?
00:10:36
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If I go up to the heavens, that's plural, that's the air, or the atmosphere, outer space, the sky, heaven itself, you are there. If i make my bed in the depths, you are there.
00:10:51
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If I rise on the wings of the dawn, if I settle on the far side of the sea, even there your hand will guide me, your right hand will hold me fast.
00:11:04
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If I say, surely the darkness will hide me and the light become night around me, even the darkness will not be dark to you, and the night will shine like the day, for darkness is as light to you, God sees everything.
00:11:21
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For you created my inmost being. You knit me together in my mother's womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Your works are wonderful.
00:11:32
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I know that full well. My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place, when I was woven together in the depths of the earth. That has two meanings.
00:11:44
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On one hand, that's being knit together in your mother's womb. also refers to Jesus, prophetically, being put back together again, reassembled, healed and restored, and resurrected on the third day underground.
00:12:02
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Your eyes saw my unformed body. All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be. How precious to me are your thoughts, God. How vast is the sum of them.
00:12:17
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For I to count them, they would outnumber the grains of sand. When I awake, I'm still with you. If only you, God. ah And then he gets pretty vicious.
00:12:30
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Would slay the wicked. That's basically Jonah's opinion right there. i remember when my grandfather was dying, we were reading him scripture and he was so happy. He was like, daddy knows.
00:12:41
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And then my sister began reading this part and from the near deadness of his sleep, he was like, contorting. think that's what finished him off.
00:12:52
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If only you, God, would slay the wicked. Away from me, you who have bloodthirsty. They speak of you with evil intent. Your adversaries misuse your name.
00:13:04
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Do I not hate those who hate you, Lord, and abhor those who are in rebellion against you? I have nothing but hatred for them. I count them my enemies. This is totally Jonah.
00:13:16
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Search me, God, and know my heart. Test me and know my anxious thoughts. The irony of Search my heart. Tell me what's in there that shouldn't be. After this tirade.
00:13:28
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See if there's any offensive way in me. And lead me in the way of everlasting. As for escape by the sea, God owns the sea and its lanes.
00:13:42
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In fact, it also says in Psalm 24, the earth is the Lord's and everything in it, the world and all who live in it. For he founded it on the seas and established it on the waters.
Jonah's Confession and the Mariners
00:13:58
Speaker
So while he was sailing away to Sartish, God hurled storm at the ship. You can just imagine the ship going, whoosh.
00:14:10
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ah all over the place, melodramatically, waves crashing on the poor sailors just pulling hair out of their head, not knowing what's happening. The Bible said they tried to lighten the load of the ship by throwing things overboard, and they were praying to their gods, demons, for help, who obviously were not going to help them because demons hate people.
00:14:32
Speaker
And when these seasoned sailors came below deck looking for Jonah, they found him fast asleep. I mean, it's one thing, Jesus being fast asleep during a storm, you know, he was God. He knew why he'd come the earth. He knew he wasn't going to die in a dusty boat. He knew cross what was his future with destiny.
00:14:53
Speaker
But Jonah was a prophet. He was supposed to bring heaven's commands to the earth. He was supposed to be ah spokesperson for heaven on the earth to speak and proclaim the Lord's deliverance and the Lord's power and the Lord's miracle work and wonders And instead, he had absolutely no interest in these people.
00:15:16
Speaker
Just like the Ninevites, they were Gentiles, they weren't Jews, they weren't Israelites, they weren't his problem. If the boat were to go under and drown them all, it was absolutely nothing to him, skin off his nose at all.
00:15:32
Speaker
Not knowing what was going on with Jonah or what to do with him, The men prayed to their demonic gods for deliverance, which of course did not come, and then they rolled dice.
00:15:42
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They cast lots in the hope of finding out who was to blame. This might sound very strange to us today because we have Holy Spirit now. We don't need to rely on dice.
00:15:54
Speaker
But in Proverbs 16.33, King Solomon writes, The lot is cast into the lap, but its every decision is from the Lord. Other translations say the lots is cast into the lap, but the Lord makes the spots come up.
00:16:11
Speaker
Which is to say, and if we get a one and a one, Jack is to blame. If we get a one and two, Jonathan's to blame. If we get a one to three, Jonah's to blame. If it's a one and a seven, Anthony's to blame.
00:16:27
Speaker
Throw them. And God would produce the results. God would give the answer, provide the answer through the dice.
00:16:36
Speaker
The dice showed up revealing Jonah was to blame. He was the one who had committed an offense against his guards and an accounting was required. Well, there was no point lying at this stage.
00:16:50
Speaker
So Jonah laid it all on the table. you just said it as it was. He said, yeah, look, listen, it was my fault. My bad. I'm totally in aley and in the wrong here.
00:17:03
Speaker
um i believe the Lord, the God of heaven, made the earth and he made the sea. I'm trying to outrun his call on my life.
00:17:15
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This really resonated with the mariners because we can see from the scripture that the God of heaven was an expression that they understood. Second Chronicles 36, 23.
00:17:27
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thirty six twenty three This is what King Cyrus, king of Persia, says. The Lord, the God of heaven, has given me all the kingdoms of the earth and he's appointed me to build a temple for him at Jerusalem in Judah.
00:17:44
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Any of his people among you may go up and may the Lord, their God, be with them.
00:17:53
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Ezra 721. Now King Artaxerxes
00:18:00
Speaker
of the Persemedes Empire, decree that all the treasuries of trans-Euphrates are to provide with diligence whatever Ezra the priest wants. the teacher of the law, of the God of heaven, may ask of you.
00:18:17
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Nehemiah 2.20 I answered them by saying, The God of heaven will give us success. We, his servants, will start rebuilding. But as for you, you have no share in Jerusalem or are any claim or historic right to it.
00:18:34
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And in Daniel chapter two seventeen to eighteen Then Daniel returned to his home and explained the matter to his friends, Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah.
00:18:48
Speaker
You're right, nobody ever called them that. We call them Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. He urged them to plead for mercy from the God of heaven concerning this mystery, so that he and his friends might not be executed with the rest of the wise men of Babylon.
00:19:07
Speaker
Or later on in verse 37, your majesty, you are the king of kings. The God of heaven has given you dominion and power and might and glory.
00:19:21
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And in verse 44, in the time of those kings, the God of heaven will set up a kingdom that will never be destroyed, nor will it be left when other people It will crush all those kingdoms and bring them to an end, but it will endure forever.
00:19:38
Speaker
And that's the kingdom that Jesus brings in at the very end of the Bible in the nation of Israel. And it lasts 1000 years. And it's interesting.
Gentile Sailors and Jonah's Indifference
00:19:50
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The man of God in this story is the liar, the petty one, the deceptive one, the one who kind of makes you face palm and cringe. But it was the Gentiles who actually tried to sail back to land so that he could get off.
00:20:08
Speaker
Otherwise, you know, they were going drown. The ship was going to go under. So these sailors wanted to sail back to land. And Jonah is like, no, woe is me. Throw me overboard. huh Hmm.
00:20:22
Speaker
Interesting. Either he... is submitting to God, he just says, throw me over. I've given up the fight. Whatever God wants, God can do.
00:20:33
Speaker
Did he intuitively know was sent vision? Or was he suicidal and he was just fed up and he just said it's better off me to be dead than to be sent on this assignment?
00:20:47
Speaker
I'll leave that to your imagination.
00:20:50
Speaker
What we see in this story is no matter who obeys or disobeys, God has this wonderful way to work behind the scenes and to bring his plan to fruition. Because after this throwing of Jonah overboard, the seeds come down and the people on board praise and worship God Almighty, the God of heaven, Jehovah, Elohim.
00:21:15
Speaker
And that's when they began to worship him. And they made vows to him. They had a reverential fear, a reverential awe of him. They offered up a sacrifice to the Lord even.
Jonah's Prayer and Repentance
00:21:29
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After are getting thrown overboard, we get to Jonah chapter two, Jonah's prayer. This is just phenomenal. And anybody going through a hard time, i sincerely recommend that you read this in its entirety.
00:21:46
Speaker
But God did not let Jonah drown. Instead, he sent a big fish, a big sea monster to gobble him up. Not to eat him, but to catch him, to rescue him. And there he waited for three days and three nights.
00:22:01
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It was probably terrifying, let's be honest.
00:22:07
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And here's what the Bible says in Jonah 2.
00:22:13
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From inside the belly of the beast.
00:22:18
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From inside the fish, Jonah prayed to the Lord is God. He said, in my distress, I called the Lord. And he answered me. From deep in the realm of the dead, I called for help.
00:22:31
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And you listened my cry. You hurled me into the depths, into the very heart of the seas. And the currents swirled about me. All your waves and breakers swept over me.
00:22:45
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I said, I have been banished from your sight. Yet I will look again towards your holy temple. The engulfing waters threatened me.
00:22:56
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The deep surrounded me. Seaweed was wrapped around my head. To the roots of the mountains I sank down. The earth beneath barred me in forever.
00:23:09
Speaker
But you, Lord my God, brought my life up from the pit.
00:23:16
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When my life was ebbing away, i remembered you, Lord, and my prayer rose to you, to your holy temple. Those who cling to worthless idols turn away from God's love for them.
00:23:28
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But I, but shouts of grateful praise, will sacrifice to you. What I have vowed, I will make good. i will say, salvation comes from the Lord.
00:23:44
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And the Lord commanded the fish and it vomited Jonah onto dry land.
00:23:51
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Now, there are a couple things that we can glean from this. One, you can read it prophetically as Jesus dying and being buried for three days and three nights before rising again and getting air and his lungs, being resurrected.
Nineveh's Repentance and God's Mercy
00:24:07
Speaker
We could also hypothesize that Jonah died. I mean, if Jonah's right, he read himself. And he literally went down to the ebed where he was wrapped up in seaweed and he could see the bottom of the mountain, the feet the mountains.
00:24:23
Speaker
Yeah, I don't think he survived that. The fact that he specifically says that he was crying from the realm of the dead, it sounds to me like he may actually have literally died.
00:24:34
Speaker
And here the Lord performed a resurrection miracle. And then the fish gobbled him up. Just throwing it out there. When Jonah gets spat out on the shore, we often picture him covered in whale guts and gore and just think of him and shivering and it's a disgusting image.
00:24:57
Speaker
But actually when whales vomit, there's amiragin in the vomit. And amiragin is one of the ingredients in perfume. Think of the old Coco Chanel, for instance.
00:25:12
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Whales vomit so irregularly, but the beautiful scent and aroma that can be found within the vomit is such that it makes a small glass jar of perfume, 50, 60, 120 euros.
00:25:29
Speaker
sixty hundred and twenty year it was but
00:25:34
Speaker
And in the same way, when we go through hard times, God has the most incredible ability to make our lives richer, to make our lives more dynamic, to make our lives purer, more refined, holier, more sold out for him, even more precious than they had been before.
00:25:53
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So with this new lease on life, this new dynamism, this new testimony, Jonah's told, often and ever you go. and tell them what I told you to tell them all along.
00:26:07
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Nineveh was probably the greatest city in the world in Jonah's day. And the Bible tells us that it took him three days walk to cross Nineveh's metropolitan area.
00:26:21
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This would mean that the metroplex was 96.6 kilometers in diameter. And we do know that the city was so large because at the end of Jonah, we're told that there were 120,000 people who did not know the difference from their right hand and their left hand.
00:26:42
Speaker
What does that mean? Toddlers, babies, children under two years of age. So if we consider normal population distribution, you're looking at a city of maybe 3 million people.
00:26:57
Speaker
So Jonah made his way to Nineveh and his evangelistic prophetic outreach was incredibly limited. In 40 days, you are goners.
00:27:08
Speaker
Finito. Ultimate destruction will befall you. He was a prophet. He knew the heart of God. He knew the heart of God was to save.
00:27:20
Speaker
He knew God was compassionate, slow to anger, rich in mercy, abounding in love. Did he say any of that? No. Because he looked at these people, he thought that they were undeserving of God's forgiveness, and he probably kind of got off on telling them that destruction was their portion, and there was is no future for them.
00:27:43
Speaker
There was no hope and no salvation. But i love their response. As soon as they heard this, they put on sackcloth, slapped ashes on themselves, and they began fasting and repenting. And whatever wickedness and evil they had done, they did 180 degree turn instantly.
00:28:02
Speaker
From the top to the bottom. From the king to the animals. Now, some people might wonder, oh wow, like, no. Why did they just assume it was true? How did they just...
00:28:17
Speaker
turned their lives around so quickly. Well, the historical record shows this actually was a very trying time for the Ninevites. So they were only sensible in believing it.
00:28:30
Speaker
Weakness had begun to befall the empire. They had had famines. They had had revolts. They were being threatened externally by Arameans and Euracians.
00:28:43
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The kingship was weak. and the provinces maintained a large degree of independence. For instance, note, it wasn't the emperor who puts on sackcloth and ashes.
00:28:58
Speaker
It was the king of Nineveh. And this pleased God monumentally. We, the body of Christ, are recipients of his grace, his undeserved favor.
00:29:10
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It's a gift he gives to those who will receive it. Why? Because he wants to, because he chooses to be compassionate.
00:29:18
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With his mercy in the Old Testament, he recognized that people were sinners, people were nasty, people were bad. but But he said, listen, even though you're rotten to the core, I'm going to throw you a lifeline.
00:29:33
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Will you receive it? And he absolutely delighted when people would choose to take hold of the mercy he extended to them. For instance, Psalm 86, 15 says, But you, Lord, are a compassionate and gracious God, flow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness.
00:29:55
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Other translations refer to that as his mercy.
00:30:01
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Psalm 105, verse 8. The Lord is gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and rich in love. Psalm 145 verse eight.
00:30:12
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The Lord is gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and rich in love. Jeremiah 33, 26. Then I will reject the descendants of Jacob and David, my servant.
00:30:26
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I will not choose one of his sons to rule over the descendants of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. for I'll restore their fortunes and have compassion on them. And Ezekiel 39, 25.
00:30:42
Speaker
Therefore, this is what the sovereign Lord says. i will now restore the fortunes of Jacob. I will have compassion all the people of Israel, and i will be zealous for holy name.
00:30:57
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And God's love of mercy and compassion can further be seen. And how the focal point of the tabernacle and later the temple of God was the mercy seat, the Ark of the Covenant, which was the mercy seat, where Jesus would step into the Old Testament and he would sit on it in between the two cherubim sculptures and basically make his seat.
00:31:23
Speaker
Rules and decrees, his regulations, then forth his word. Make an atonement cover pure gold, two and a half cubits long and a cubit and a half wide.
00:31:36
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And make two cherubim out of hammered gold at the ends of the cover. Make one cherub on one end and the second cherub on the other. Make the cherubim of one piece with the cover at the two ends.
00:31:51
Speaker
The cherubim are to have their wings spread upward, overshadowing the cover with them. The cherubim are to face each other, looking toward the cover. Place the cover on top of the ark and put in the ark the tablets of the covenant law that I'll give to you.
00:32:08
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There, above the cover, between the two cherubim that are over the ark of the covenant law, I will meet with you and give you all my commands for the Israelites.
00:32:24
Speaker
but God's mercy. God looked favorably on the device and he said okay, fair enough.
Jonah's Discontent with God's Mercy
00:32:33
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My heart was to show you mercy.
00:32:36
Speaker
Not what Jonah had said. Compassion. Which Jonah had not said. Loving kindness. Which Jonah had neglected to say.
00:32:50
Speaker
The Lord said, you know what? Okay. This is what I wanted. Best case scenario. So I've abstained my wrath. And this sickened Jonah in his stomach.
00:33:03
Speaker
In fact, he left Nineveh, went the east of it, and just sat there watching it. And you can just imagine him on day 40. Oh my goodness. He was probably hoping that they would have messed up I just totally got back there always. Because it's not like he was there to talk to who God was.
00:33:22
Speaker
He'd given them a warning. And they turned things around. He hadn't spoken out about the Ten Commandments. He hadn't spoken against the heroes of old. He hadn't spoken about Adam and Eve, the first sin, God's redemption program, the powers in the Red Sea. None of it.
00:33:38
Speaker
He hightailed it out of there. And he just sat there, you know, you'd imagine with his binoculars. Come on, God, throw fire from heaven and down upon them. Send in their enemies.
00:33:50
Speaker
And it did not happen. And he loathed God's mercy towards them. So as he sat there watching them, the Mideast sun rose and it was sweltering. It was boiling. was gorgeous. But my goodness, it was wicked on the skin.
Lesson of the Plant and Compassion
00:34:08
Speaker
he began to feel fainted. He was in terrible distress. Oh my goodness, what if I get sunburned? And so the Lord up a vine, some translations say a gourd, covered over him, provided it was shed with relief.
00:34:28
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And he could rest against his breath, and he's delighted in it. And you know, there is a limited time of disobedience that God will allow. You can stray, you can tag out, you can camp out.
00:34:43
Speaker
And there is a point I wish God would say, all right, I'll allow it for now, for a little while. But then what happened? God sent a worm to gobble up the vine, Jonah lost his marbles. He had an absolute conniption.
00:35:01
Speaker
And the Lord spoke to him very plainly.
00:35:06
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Jonah, Prophet Jonah, do you honestly and truly care more about plants than people?
00:35:15
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The answer was yes.
00:35:18
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Do you honestly care more about a vine rather than vindication? Obviously. Do you honestly care more about a goard rather than people made in God's image? image
00:35:36
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Jonah's priorities were all over the place and his focus was not what his focus should have been. His concern was not whose concern should have been.
00:35:49
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in fact, not only was he angry with the Lord but divine, but he betrayed his real intentions. He said, I did not want to come here for one reason because I knew your character.
00:36:04
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I knew it, I knew it! I knew that you would try to save these people. I knew that if they humbled themselves, and he seems to have had an inkling that they would, that you would come to their defense.
00:36:17
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You'd wipe the slate clean, you'd say, okay, you're part of the fam, get in there, you're saved, you're delivered, and I'm not happy with that god, I don't like it.
00:36:31
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Some people might say... don't mean to race-based.
00:36:37
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But he just didn't want other nationalities getting in on the things of God. Others might say, well, he had probably made such a big deal of telling people, oh, destruction's coming to Nineveh.
00:36:51
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They're all gonna die. They're gonna get their comeuppance. Justice! Revenge!
00:37:02
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But he hadn't spoken once about the love of God. So God did what God always does. Which is he sends forth the word. And if people get their act together, the word can be pulled back.
00:37:19
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He can relent.
00:37:24
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Because his will is to save, to be merciful.
00:37:28
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Maybe Jonah just thought, oh crap on things. Now people are gonna say I'm a false prophet. Jonah started tweeting at me, false prophet, false prophet.
00:37:41
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Jonah started making YouTube videos, false prophet exposed. Jonah said this, and he gave this time frame. But that didn't happen. He's a liar. Stone him to death. He's not the devil.
00:37:55
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and Because yes, God's word is always good. And it's always just and it's always true. But his word's fulfillment almost always depends on human decision.
00:38:09
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Or indecision. Which is also making a decision. Because God does things in partnership with us. And if he gives a word of warning, get your act together and there is a time for correction.
00:38:23
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And if you do correct, then you get his blessing and his favor instead. As a prophet, that's something Jonah should have known. Sadly, a lot of people don't know it today, hence why we have so much backstabbing and self-harm in the body of Christ.
00:38:39
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We've got people who watch prophets prophesying and they they they sit and wait. They're like they like crouching tigers and hidden dragons waiting for an opportunity to to to jump, to pounce and to say, you said this didn't happen the way that you said it would.
00:38:58
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That didn't happen the way that I thought it would. That didn't happen in the time frame that I had planned.
00:39:06
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A word misspoken is a word misspoken. That's one thing. But Jonah gave a word here, but not the heart of God.
00:39:15
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He gave the word, people responded, and he was offended at the heart of God. didn't think these people deserved to get in.
Conclusion: God's Love and Mercy
00:39:25
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But thank God that we do serve a God who is merciful, who's gracious, who loving kindness personified.
00:39:35
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And who, even though we don't deserve it, chooses to give us himself anyway. And that is the God that we love. One who first loved us. One who chose us before the foundation of the earth was lain.
00:39:51
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And while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
00:39:56
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Amen.