Jonah's Message

A Prophet Is Chosen

1Now the word of the LORD came unto Jonah the son of Amittai, saying,

2Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and cry against it; for their wickedness is come up before me.

3But Jonah rose up to flee unto Tarshish from the presence of the LORD, and went down to Joppa; and he found a ship going to Tarshish: 

so he paid the fare thereof, and went down into it, to go with them unto Tarshish from the presence of the LORD.

Jonah is chosen by God to take His Word to Nineveh.

Certainly not for human reasons was Jonah chosen.

All we know is there was 'wickedness' so great that it came up before the personal presence of God Almighty.

 We are shown in the story of Jonah that he was not specifically qualified for the work by character, piety, or virtues.

God never calls qualified men, He makes men qualified whom He chooses.

 Everything begins the moment God decides to choose.

Thus the story begins when the Word of God Almighty is revealed to Jonah.

Recall when the Word of the Lord first came to you?

Recall the power and might displayed to you personally when God's living (Rema) Word first came to you?

 Everything was frozen in time as you realized that God Almighty was addressing you from eternity.

We usually see the translation "The Word of the Lord came to...," but in fact the Hebrew simply says "is."

The Word of God is.

 It is for Jonah and to him.

It is for you and I and to us.

This shows clearly that the Word is not just words.

1 Corinthians 2:3-5

3And I was with you in weakness, and in fear, and in much trembling.

4And my speech and my preaching was not with enticing words of man's wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power:

5That your faith should not stand in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God.

It is a power which exists and manifests itself.

 This is why, when the Word is thus revealed to a man, he is not at all in the situation we always imagine:

a subordinate receiving orders from a superior; a subordinate who ought to fulfill the order, though this is just a collection of words, which certainly aims at action, and is backed by social sanctions, but which is not itself an action so that in large measure the subordinate is free:

he may obey or disobey.

The Word of God, however, is not at all like this.

It is power and not just discourse.

 It transforms what it touches.

It cannot be anything but creative and salvic.

It never fails to take effect.

A human order, when not obeyed, is without effect, but God's Word always attains its end.

 In fact this is one of the main lessons of the Book of Jonah.

The Word effects God's decision after all kinds of detours and complications which arise because God takes into account and respect's man's decisions too.

When the Word intervenes in a situation, it changes that situation.

When it comes on a man, it changes that man even if he refuses to listen.

 This goes beyond mere obedience.

The Word enlists man in an adventure into which he carries all those around him and which may be a controversy with God.

This Word is addressed to an individual man.

 This Word was addressed to you individually.

 In effect it is always specific.

 It is not general truth which any man might grasp and understand with no particular action on God's part.

 God is first the God of an individual man.

 Election and vocation relate to an individual and not a crowd, not mankind, not man in general.

We know nothing about the one thus chosen and designated.

 The Bible does not think it necessary to give us this information.

We know almost nothing about Jonah, his family, village, or person.

He is a stranger to us.

 He begins to be important only when the Word of the Lord is on him.

We are like that too.

He becomes personal at this moment.

 Before he no doubt had the worth of any man.

 He was an individual.

 Perhaps he was very important.

But his destiny was fixed.

 He was subject to destiny.

Now he is taken from the ranks.

He achieves singularity. He masters destiny. He is called to change history for himself and others.

Are we who have been called by the Word of Almighty God not unlike this man?

This does not imply individualism.

 Jonah is a member of the chosen people.

The Word he is given is part of the covenant.

Jonah belongs to the people of God and this Word integrates him the more closely into the people of God.

 Throughout his adventure he is alone: alone in face of God and in face of death and in face of Nineveh.

But in his solitude, whether aware of it or not, he belongs to the cloud of witnesses, to the 7,000 men who have not bowed the knee to Baal, to the remnant of Israel.

In fact Jonah represents the whole people of Israel, and if he is quite alone he still represents the whole people, both Israel and the Church.

This is why God cannot rest content with his individual and arbitrary decision.

When Jonah turns his back and flees, it is not just Jonah who is at stake but the whole Church and the world.

 God cannot let him go. If this man is not independent of God it is because of the world to which he is sent.

The Word had only to come to Jonah for his situation to be genuinely and totally changed even though he himself was not yet changed.

 What was it that changed, according to the text?

We note first that this Word which manifests God's choice or election is not just an intimation of this election.

 It is not a kind of announcement which makes known God's decision and which contributes to our personal satisfaction, our personal joy, our edification, and our peace.

This Word makes known to Jonah that he has been chosen for a purpose.

God's election is never a choice which stops with the choice.

When God Almighty picks out a man and speaks to him, it is to engage him in a work, an action.

Nowhere in Scripture do we find indeterminate or purely ambiguous vocation.

 Nowhere do we find general election to fulfill the will of God at large.

No.

When God addresses a man He does not merely give singularity to the man; He also particularizes His will to him.

There is of course a general will of God which in some sort applies to all of us.

 But election does not consist in knowledge of this general will. It is enlistment in a precise action, a specific work.

If God chooses a man, it is in order that he may serve in the work God has undertaken.

It is in the measure that he does serve thus that his true election is made known and that it becomes more clear and certain for him.

You know your election and your calling.

We cannot be content, then, with Christian virtues; vocation presupposes taking a part in the work.

There is no election apart from taking part in this way.

Moreover, when God has chosen a man who has a function to discharge, He never goes back on this.

 The man who is thus enlisted willy~nilly in God's action remains a chosen man even though he refuses and flees.

The fact that Jonah flees is by no means unique.

On the contrary, one might say that all men, when they become aware of this call, begin by refusing and fleeing.

But God's choice persists.

 He has chosen for a precise action, and so long as this is not performed God Almighty pursues man.

 This is true of all the men of the Bible, including Jonah and you and I.

OK, so in spiritual reality it is much too simple to think that God offers His grace to man and man accepts or refuses.

When God has graciously chosen a man His grace continues even though the man does not do what God has decided.

On the other hand, this persistence of election, of which Jonah is an extraordinary example (Which is connected with the fact that God Almighty chooses for a specific action), does not entail a negation of man's will.

God pursues this man, conducts him through his whole life, in order to bring about the consent of this man's will to what God has decided.

 We see this in the details of God's dealings with Jonah.

In the word's of Lonnie Frisbee, "Don't run, give up fasssst. God always wins..."

On each occasion man can refuse and on each occasion God begins again until man has finally chosen to accept.

It may thus be said that by this word man is both more free and also less free than in the presence of a human order.

He is more free because he is detached by this word even from social contingencies; he must break with the world.

 That is what we find with Jonah.

No matter whether he decides to obey or flee, there is a rupture with his daily life, his background, his country.

 Hence fourth he is separated from others.

The matter is so important that everything which previously shaped the life of this man humanly and sociologically fades from the scene.

He is in a situation such as no human order could present to him.

Anything that might impel him to obey according to the world has lost it's value and weight for him.

But he is also enlisted in an action which he has not chosen and cannot avoid.

 He is pursued by a devouring love which wants him totally, in the ardor of his own converted heart.

 He is pursued by an unweary patience which will use every means to bring it about finally that this man yields to God's reason.

And the adventure in which man is obliged to stake everything in a freedom which is given, but given only for this adventure, seems to be extraordinarily important for God.

 In some sense God engages Himself in the work in which He engages man.

Another aspect of all of this situation in which the Word of God sets man is that everything around the called man circles him because he has been chosen.

 A tempest is unleashed.

The people around the called man are inadvertently involved in the work being done in this man's life.

 God uses everything at His command to nudge this man into compliance to the action for which the man has been called.

There will be no rest for anyone around this called man until he does what he has been called to do.

This does not mean that we have to inquire into the spiritual meaning of every event.

But we have to realize that these events, in spite of their rational appearance, are in effect part of the formidable accomplishment of the work of Almighty God.

It all begun while Jonah was asleep in the hold of a ship.

Jonah had refused the Word of the Lord and ran...a storm erupted.

God is asking the impossible from Jonah, from the human standpoint he has good reason for running.

The people he is being sent to are cruel, they decorated their walls and pyramids with scorched enemy skins.

 Jonah was being sent to mighty conquerors!

A fierce people.

 Anything is better than certain death at Nineveh.

Jonah will not accept the impossible from God.

He judges as the world judges.

But he does not take into account the fact that he is engaged in an adventure in which it is no longer possible to judge this way or that.

Decisions made according to the reasoning of the world will lead nowhere and solve nothing.

We see God taking nature into play to see that Jonah fulfills his vocation.

The others, the sailors, on the ship are impacted.

Jonah has set off in a direction which is precisely the opposite of that indicated by God.

 He finds that he can no longer live his life where he is.

He must leave, and does so as a fugitive.

 He flees, the text says.

 He has a bad conscience and flees like Adam and Cain.

 He flees "away from the presence of the Lord."

It seems to me that the real sense here is spiritual.

In departing. Jonah breaks with the people which God has chosen.

He no longer wants to belong to the chosen people. So impossible is the order.

The story of Jonah is indeed the story of all of us.

What sacrifices are we not ready to make to be far from the face of God, unable as we are to accept that it is from God Himself who fulfills His impossible will!

One more thing, Jonah flees from the presence of God and during the stormy tempest he sleeps.

 The point is that he refuses even to contemplate this storm.

He refuses to see it except as a natural phenomenon about which he can do nothing. He will not see in it God's act, God's appeal, God's pointer.

He prefers to know nothing about it. He continues to flee by plunging into unconsciousness of sleep in order not to know that it comes from God.

And we all know what comes next...

In the word's of Lonnie Frisbee, "Don't run, give up fasssst. God always wins..."

God Is Asking The Impossible From Jonah

And we have to realize that what God asks is always impossible from the human standpoint and according to man's judgment. Jonah had very good reasons to refuse and flee.

Anything is better than certain death at Nineveh.

 Jonah will not accept the impossible from Almighty God.

He judges as the world judges.

 And he does not take into account the fact that he is engaged in an adventure in which it is no longer possible to judge thus and that decisions taken according to the reasoning of the world will lead nowhere and solve nothing.

It is true folly to go to Nineveh in Jonah's way of thinking, that great city which was always in arms against God and His people.

To begin with, he would have to make a tremendous journey across the dry desert: about 750 miles on foot.

 This was the first difficulty.

Then he would arrive at a very large city with far more than 120,000 inhabitants, and he would be quite alone there.

This people was a traditional foe of Israel.

Jehovah was sending a man to preach repentance to the conquerors.

The most cruel people of antiquity.

It was the people which scorched its enemies alive to decorate its walls and pyramids with their skin.

It was the place of human pride which allies itself with demons and rejects God.

 It was the world fast closed against God.

Spiritually this was what Nineveh represented.

Opposed to God, this city was necessarily opposed to His people.

God orders Jonah to go to the very place he could not go...a light among the darkness.

 In sum, Nineveh is the 'world' in the theological sense.

Jonah sets off in a direction which is precise opposite of that indicated by God.

 He can no longer live his life where he is.

 He must leave, and do so as a fugitive.

 He flees, the text says.

 He has a bad conscience and flees like Adam and Cain.

 He knows that there is no justice for him and that the only solution is to put a barrier between himself and God.

 He flees "away from the presence of the Lord."

Jonah knew perfectly well that Yahweh is a God who owns the earth.

And yet he flees abroad where there are other gods.

Jonah breaks with the people which God has chosen.

He no longer wants to belong to the chosen people.

 He prefers to follow other gods rather than the Living God.
 
He snaps all that which humanly binds him to his living God to end the whole affair.

 He chooses to damn himself.

 This is the meaning of fleeing from the face of the Lord.

 It seems preferable to obedience, so impossible is the order.

To achieve damnation he pays.

 He pays his passage.

The story of Jonah is indeed the story of all of us.

 What sacrifices are we not ready to make to be far from the face of God, unable as we are to accept that it is God Himself who fulfills His impossible will!

Jonah flees from the presence of God, goes down into the interior of the ship and sleeps.

 The point is that he refuses even to contemplate this storm.

He refuses to see it except as a natural phenomenon about which he can do nothing.

He will not see in it God's act, God's appeal, God's pointer.

He prefers to know nothing about it.

He continues to flee by plunging into unconsciousness in order not to know that it comes from God.

When all the world is in danger, the man who flees from the Word of God seals himself off in his solitude, willing neither to see nor hear anything of what others are doing. He sleeps...

Jonah, like some Christians, is asleep.

 Lost in the slumber of their activities, their good works, their theology, 'their' communities, perhaps skirting reality.

Reality of Gods true calling over them.

When the church is ready to play its part in the world's adventure- and why it is sent- it truly awakens to its destiny.

 Powerful things happen against all odds.

 The pagans do not know what the adventure is all about.

 Jonah does.

Christians share the same knowledge.

Christians see how God awakens Jonah...Jonah who is not the least bit interested.

 God is not playing a game.

 Jonah did not want to carry salvation to Nineveh.

So thus the storm.

God respect man's freedom and yet He makes him fulfill in spite of himself the role assigned to him in God's design.

Today's Christians are resistant to preaching the evangelical message to the world around them.

 They are asleep as far as this is concerned.

 Evangelism is God's job they say. I am not called to evangelism they say.

Jonah is guilty.

Jonah did not want to do God's will.

 A storm followed Jonah, a storm will perhaps follow us sleeping Christians.

Matthew 5:13
Ye are the salt of the earth: but if the salt have lost his savour, wherewith shall it be salted? it is thenceforth good for nothing, but to be cast out, and to be trodden under foot of men.

Acts 1:8
But ye shall receive power, after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you: and ye shall be witnesses unto me both in Jerusalem, and in all Judaea, and in Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the earth.

Jonah's Storm

Jonah 1:1-3

1Now the word of the LORD came unto Jonah the son of Amittai, saying,

2Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and cry against it; for their wickedness is come up before me.

3But Jonah rose up to flee unto Tarshish from the presence of the LORD, and went down to Joppa; and he found a ship going to Tarshish: so he paid the fare thereof, and went down into it, to go with them unto Tarshish from the presence of the LORD.

The Word had only to come to Jonah for his situation to be genuinely and totally changed even though he himself was not yet changed. 

What was it that changed, according to the text?

We take note first that this Word which manifests Almighty God's choice or election is not just an intimation of this election.

 It is not a kind of announcement which makes known God's decision and which contributes to our own personal satisfaction, our personal joy, our edification, and our peace.

This Word makes known to Jonah that he has been chosen for a specific purpose.

 God's election is never a choice which stops with the choice.

When God picks out a man and speaks to him, it is to engage him in a work, an action.

No where in Scripture do we find indeterminate or purely mystical vocation.

 No where do we find general election, for example, election to be a Christian 'grosso modo,' to fulfill the will of God at large.

When God addresses a man He does not merely give singularity to the man; He also particularizes His will for him.

There is, of course, a general will of God which in some sort applies to all of us.

 But election does not consist in knowledge of this general will.

 It is enlistment in a precise action, a specific work.

If God chooses a man, it is in order that He may serve in the work God has undertaken.

 It is in the measure that he does serve thus that his true election is made known and that it becomes more clear and certain for him.

We cannot be content, then, with Christian virtues; vocation presupposes taking part in a work. There is no election apart from taking part in this way.

Moreover, when Almighty God has chosen a man who has a function to discharge, he never goes back on this.

 The man who is thus enlisted willy~nilly in God's action remains a chosen man even though he refuses and flees to a far away island.

The fact that Jonah flees is by no means unique.

On the contrary, one might say that all men, when they become aware of this call, begin by refusing and fleeing.

But God's choice persists.

 He has chosen for a precise action, and so long as this is not performed God pursues man.

This is true of all the men of the Bible, including Jonah.

In reality, spiritual reality, it is much too simple to think that God offers His grace to man and man accepts or refuses.

 When God has graciously chosen a man His grace continues even though the man does not do what God has decided.

On the other hand, this persistence of election, of which Jonah is an extraordinary example; which is connected with the fact that Almighty God chooses for a specific action, does not entail a negation of man's will.

God pursues this man, conducts him through his whole life, in order to bring about the consent of this man's will to what God has decided.

 

 We see this in God's dealings with Jonah (us).

On each occasion man can refuse and on each occasion God begins again until man has finally chosen to accept.

 It can thus be said that by this Word man is both more free and also less free than in the presence of a human order.

He is more free because he is detached by this Word even from social contingencies; he must break with the world.

That is what we find with Jonah.

 No matter whether he decides to obey or to flee, there is a rupture with his daily life, his background, his country.

Henceforth he is separated from others.

 The matter is so important that everything which previously shaped the life of this man humanly and sociologically fades from the scene.

He is in a situation such as no human order could present to him.

Anything that might impel him to obey according to the world has lost its value and weight for him.

But he is also enlisted in an action which he has not chosen and cannot avoid.

He is pursued by a devouring love which wants him totally, in the ardor of his own converted heart. He is pursued by the unweary patience which will use every means to bring it about finally that this man yields to God's reason.

And the adventure in which man is obliged to stake everything in a freedom which is given, but given only for this adventure, seems to extraordinarily important for God.

In some sense God engages himself in the work in which he engages man.

Everything circles around the man who has been chosen.

 A tempest is unleashed.

The storm is only there for Jonah.

 Science can never explain it as a natural event.

 Jonah teaches us that this storm, whose physical causes are the same as those of all other storms, is there only for Jonah and because of Jonah.

It does have other effects. It sweeps the coasts, disperses fish, causes ships to founder.

 But its purpose is to smash inflexible Jonah.

Thus the elements and many men, especially the sailors, are engaged in the adventure of Jonah with him and because of him.

 One sees here the weight and seriousness of the call and vocation.

God thinks His choice so important, and takes the one elected so seriously, that He brings nature into play to see that this man fulfills his vocation.

This does not mean that we have to inquire into the spiritual meaning of every event.

But we have to realize that these events, in spite of their rational appearance, are on effect part of the formidable accomplishment of the work of God.

Simply an instrument of God's work.

 But in the face of the tempest, Jonah sleeps.

Are you sleeping my friend?

More On Jonah

With Jonah are the sailors. 

Without knowing it they are involved in a curious history.

These Joppa sailors do not belong to the Jewish people.

 They are pagans, or, in modern terms, non~Christians. But they have set sail with a member of the chosen people, a Christian.

The lot of non~Christians is henceforth linked; they are in the same boat. The safety of all depends on what each does. But each has his own thing to do.

They are in the same storm, subject to the same peril, and they want the same outcome.

What do these sailors do?

 First, they do all they humanly can; while Jonah sleeps, they try all human methods to save the vessel, to keep the enterprise going.

What experience, nautical science, reason, and common sense teach them to do, they do.

In this sense they do their duty.

The sailors are in charge of the world, and in normal conditions they discharge their tasks correctly.

We can ask no more of them.

The tragic thing here, however, is that if conditions cease to be normal, it is not the fault of the sailors, the pagans, it is the fault of the Christian who has sailed with them.

 It is because of him that the situation is such that the knowledge and tradition of the sailors can do no more.

We have to realize that this is how it usually is with the world.

The storm is unleashed because of the unfaithfulness of the Church and the Christians.

Today, we are in a storm.

While Jonah Christians are asleep below deck. At some point their dreams and visions and zeal have been extinguished.

In their churches there is more marketing than miracles. They have no impact.

Todays Christians are mostly living harmless, insignificant lives they have no business living.

 Living lives of secure routines by choice instead of their true destinies. Like Jonah, refusing the call to duty and sleeping below deck in the matrix of false security, abandoning destiny.

Recognizing vaguely the presence of spiritual forces, the sailors try next to approach them.

As each knows best they beseech their gods, both good and evil.

 No doubt they also put their trust in their false gods.

What else can they do, seeing they do not know the true God? They also turn to obscure powers, magic.

They draw lots.

Then the sailors approach Jonah.

Non~Christians address Christians. Jonah, like Christians, is asleep.

But after all, each is calling upon his god, and why should not they be invited to do so as well?

Even if it does no good.

Perhaps non~Christians do not expect much of Christians. But at this event they rouse them, they make Christians see what is really going on.

A remarkable thing about even the active Christian is that he never has much more than a vague idea about reality.

He is lost in the slumber of his activities, his good works, his chorales, his theology, his evangelizing, his communities.

He always skirts reality.

He views the storm from outside, not as one who is in the boat, even if his intentions, unlike Jonah's are good.

It is non~Christians who have to waken him out of his sleep to share actively the common lot.

A sleep having "a form of godliness" but denying the power. II Tim 3:5.

We are in an end times obsession with security. We are giving up our destiny for security.

Jonah wanted to be secure, giving up his God ordained destiny for supposed security.

"We can not be safe as long as we are secure," said Matthew Henry. Security is the demented pursuit of all things that remove uncertainty.

Security offers you food and shelter in exchange for your freedom. It is the Matrix.

When you subconsciously decide that our nation is unchangeable; that you can't make a difference; that your dream just takes too much out of you; then you end up in the prison of security.

Safety is peace through victory. It is placing your life at divine risk; choosing to find and fulfill the purpose of your life.

Being in the center of God's purpose for your life is the safest place there is.

Your in the Matrix of a non-impact life.

Your ministry is over.

Your asleep below deck on the boat of life.

What's it gonna take to awaken you?

Our nation is not a Christian nation and we sleep below deck...

What happened to our impact? Our authority?

It is time to wake up.

 It is time to go forth and to fulfill our destiny.

Time to stop giving up our freedoms, seeking after security, time to obey God Almighty!

Mark 1615
And he said unto them, Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature. 16He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; but he that believeth not shall be damned. 17And these signs shall follow them that believe; In my name shall they cast out devils; they shall speak with new tongues; 18They shall take up serpents; and if they drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them; they shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover.

If the Holy Spirit is quickening you, then who can speak against it?

Not even you can speak against the voice of God telling you to get up and go do it!

When Jonah recognizes his responsibility, when he sees his guilt, when he realizes he ought to be for these non~Christians, for the world, when Christians and the Church confess the totality of their faith, the result is a series of astonishing facts.

He is ready to be completely condemned for his unfaithfulness and to lose his live.

 He thus becomes the witness, the martyr.

This is what is really needed.

When the Church is ready to play its part in the world's adventure- this is why it is sent- it is neither the power which organizes and dominates the world nor takes it over.

It preaches the gospel with signs following.

It is not retreating and giving up of freedoms because of "terror."

We should not forget that in Psalm 130 God pardons in order that we may fear Him.

This fear comes from accomplished grace.

The condemned man who is pardoned is seized by fear at the power which has caused death to retreat.

The sailors are led by this fear to put themselves in the hands of God.

Jonah was doing what doesn't work, sleeping.

God had called him to deliver a message.

 A message to some of the wickedest people upon this planet.

For sure he would loose his life if he did it he thought.

So he ran. He would give up his destiny for security..

Jonah found grace in the eyes of the Lord.

If you feel that you have failed Jesus so deeply that you could never be used of God again, then how do you explain the tremors of gifts yearning to come out of you?

Unplug from the Matrix.

Be insecure and free.

Forget everything that holds you back.

All of the negative voices around you.

 All of your past failures.

 Decide that no matter what happens, you are going to obey God.

You are going into the face of perceived danger and stand and deliver the message.

 You are going to be a Christian with an impact. Every person will be influenced by you.

Romans 1:16

For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth; to the Jew first, and also to the Greek.

Acts 413

Now when they saw the boldness of Peter and John, and perceived that they were unlearned and ignorant men, they marveled; and they took knowledge of them, that they had been with Jesus. 14And beholding the man which was healed standing with them, they could say nothing against it.