Will You Go?

(Side note: Several of the sub points are based off of scripture references included in my notes, but not my outline. My notes for this took up 16 hand-written pages, so I could not include everything here.)

Introduction:

If you have your Bible, please turn with me to the book of Jonah. When it comes to Bible stories that most people remember learning as a kid; Noah’s ark, David and Goliath, Daniel and the lion’s den, and Jonah in the belly of the whale are usually the first stories that come to mind. However, this story isn’t just for kids. It has very practical lessons for adults as well. It is a very ironic story that serves as a mirror for the reader at its closing. You have God the Father,  a prophet of God, a ship of sailors in a storm, a mighty fish, a wicked city, and an evil king. Yet, these roles don’t play out in the way that you would first expect. Jonah is angry at His own God for having mercy on his enemies and tries to sabotage God’s message by running away. The sailors ask for mercy as they cast Jonah into the sea during a storm and start worshiping God after the sea is calmed. The whale swallows the prophet instead of the sailors. Jonah then gets vomited up after praying on the third day. The king humbles himself with ash and sackcloth and commands for all of the people and cattle to do the same. When the city repents, the prophet Jonah is furious with God and asks to die after making a place to sit on a hill overlooking the city. God has compassion on him and grows a gourd over Jonah’s head to protect him from the heat. Jonah is very grateful for the shade. The next day, however, God sends a worm to eat up the work. Jonah becomes angry about its death and wants to die. God asks Jonah if he does right by being angry over the gourd despite not laboring over it and growing it. Jonah says he is right to be angry. The story ends with God asking should He not then have mercy on Ninivah who has over 100,000 clueless people. In the end, the prophet cared more about a gourd than he did the lives of thousands of people. 

Before we dive further into the text, it is important to understand the context of this book. 

The book of Jonah took place in Northern Israel and Assyria during the reign of King Jeroboam 2nd of Israel. Prior to this time, Assyria had been around for over 600 years and was the most powerful empire in the known world. It was centered in the middle of the trade route between the West and East, making it a rich trading hub. Additionally, it had a fearsome military which boasted the best charioteers of its time. Assyria took advantage of these benefits by plundering several countries such as Egypt and Chaldea. Over time, This empire became known as being extremely cruel and wicked. Whenever they conquered a land, they would brutally torture their captives in the name of their gods. To put it in context for us, Assryia would be similar to Imperial Japan during WW2 but far more cruel and far more influential. Now imagine being on the receiving end of Assyria’s cruelty. You would despise that nation. You would pray for God to judge and destroy them. This is the context in which Jonah lived in. His nation had suffered greatly at their hands, and they were finally unstable in their politics. During this time of relative peace, he prophesied that King Jeroboam, who happened to be a very wicked king, would restore the land boundaries of Israel. During this time, Israel became very prideful and patriotic because of their military success. Because of this, Jonah would have been very nationalistic, and he would have wanted Assyria utterly destroyed.

In light of this context, the book of Jonah is both a warning to Assyria and a rebuke to Israel for not seeking the salvation of all nations. It serves the purpose of reminding the people that God desires all nations to come to His salvation, not just Israel. When you look at the themes present in Jonah, three stand out. God is just, God is merciful, and God commands His servants to go. Please read with me Jonah 1:1-3 Now the word of the LORD came unto Jonah the son of Amittai, saying,  Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and cry against it; for their wickedness is come up before me. But 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

Point 1:God is just (for their wickedness is come up before me)

• God is justice
  • No justice exists outside of God
  • When the cries of the innocent came up to God’s ears because of Nineveh’s wickedness, He could not ignore it

1. God is a holy God
   1. Cannot tolerate sin in His presence
      1. Because of sin, Satan was kicked out of heaven
      2. Because of sin, humanity was driven from the garden of Eden
         1. Adam and Eve were created perfect and walked with God
            1. They were given free reign over paradise with the exception of one tree
               1. They chose to believe the lies of Satan that they would be as gods if they ate of the tree
                  1. The perfect relationship between Man and God was destroyed when they ate the fruit
   2. Mankind cannot have a relationship with God because of sin
      1. Everyone is a sinner
         1. Rom 3:23 For all have sinned and come short of the glory of God 
         2. RomansAs it is written, there is none righteous, no not one
      2. No amount of good works can restore this relationship
         1. Your works are like filthy rags before God

2. God cannot leave sin unpunished
   1. Romans 6:23a For the wages of sin is death 
   2. Ultimate judgment is coming
      1. Great Tribulation will pour out God’s wrath on the unbelieving world
      2. Jesus will come back to reign as King
      3. After 1,000 years, all those whose name isn’t found in the book of life will stand before God in judgment
         1. Will be found guilty of sin and cast into the lake of fire (Revelation 20:11-15)
            1. Eternally separated from God
               1. Source of all good things

3. God is the protector of the weak and defenseless
   1. Deuteronomy and Jeremiah
      1. God makes His laws in a way to protect the poor and needy (Deuteronomy 15:7)
      2. God condemns the rich elite taking advantage of the poor
         1. Jeremiah 22:15-19
   2. James says that pure religion is to take care of the orphans and widows and remain unspotted from the world
4. Jonah would be all for this trait of God
   1. He believed that salvation belonged to Jews alone and wanted his enemies to be destroyed
      1. How many of us have this attitude at times
         1. Maybe someone who hurt you badly
         2. Maybe someone who you think is bad news or untrustworthy
         3. Maybe the foreigners who you can’t understand

However, the next trait of God seen in Jonah made Jonah furious.

Point 2: God is merciful (cry against it)

1. Whenever God sends a prophecy of judgment, it is an if then scenario
   1. If you continue on your current path, then you will be destroyed for your sins
   2. However, if you repent of your sin, then you will be spared of the coming destruction
      1. By warning of the coming judgment, God is giving them a chance to repent
         1. This is why Jonah fled from Nineveh, he knew this and was angry at God about this characteristic of His (Jonah 4:2)
2. God showed Jonah mercy
   1. Instead of letting Jonah die in the sea, God kept him alive in a whale and had him spit out on dry land near Nineveh
      1. Because of God’s mercy, Jonah became obedient to God
         1. Jonah recognized that salvation is of the Lord (Jonah 2:9)
         2. This is the correct response to God’s mercy
            1. Grateful obedience
            2. James says that Christians should show their faith by obedience (James 2:18)
               1. Works do not save you
               2. However, a faith that is only intellectual and produces no change is a dead,useless faith that is head knowledge only
                  1. True faith will naturally produce good fruit
3. God showed Nineveh mercy
   1. When Nineveh responded to His message with humility and repentance, God held back the judgment for almost 100 years
4. God showed the world mercy
   1. The book of Jonah is a foreshadow of Jesus dying on the cross, being buried for 3 days, and rising up after 3 days
      1. It served the Jews as a reminder that God’s plan from the beginning was to save the whole world
         1. Gen 3:15
            1. God promised a savior to Eve
         2. Gen 12:2-3
            1. God promised Abraham that the whole world would be blessed through his descendents
   2. Jesus willingly died for an evil world to offer us the free gift of salvation
      1. John 3:16
      2. Romans 6:23b
      3. Ephesians 2:8-9
      4. Romans 10:9-10
      5. Romans 5:8
   3. Will you accept Jesus’ free gift if you have not already accepted it?
   4. Jonah was angered by God’s mercy (Jonah 4)
      1. God gave Jonah an illustration to show why His mercy was reasonable
         1. God grew a plant to give Jonah shade and then killed it the next morning
            1. Jonah was angry over the plant, yet was cold regarding human lives
               1. He said he was justified to be angry because it benefited him
         2. God then closes the book by asking why he shouldn’t spare a city with over 100,000 people who didn’t know left from right
            1. Are people not more valuable?

Point 3: God commands His servants to go (Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and cry against it)

1. God commanded Jonah to go in Jonah 1:1
   1. While Israel was being hard hearted and not repenting of their sin, God turned to the gentile nations and sent a messenger to bring salvation to them
2. Jonah hardened his heart against going (Jonah 1:3)
   1. He would rather die than to bring the message to Nineveh
   2. When God brought him to Nineveh anyways, he gave a bare-minimum message
      1. How often do we do the bare minimum of the Christian life and sharing the Gospel?
3. Jesus commanded His followers to bring the Gospel to the whole world (Matthew 28:18-20)
   1. It is a message of salvation
      1. Place your trust in Jesus as God come in the flesh, crucified, buried, and risen again, having paid in full the debt of all of our sin]
         1. Will you accept His gift
4. The Church is God’s chosen method to get the Gospel out to the world
   1. 2 Corinthians 5:18–20
   2. Church given the ministry of reconciliation
   3. Christians are ambassadors of heaven
   4. Every Christian has a responsibility to share the Gospel with everyone they meet
   5. This is a matter of life and death
      1. People’s eternities are at stake
5. God could have chosen angels or anything else to have this message shared in an instant
   1. Yet God chose us to get the job done
   2. God still carried out his plans of redemption for Nineveh despite Jonah’s sabotage
      1. God doesn’t need you for this job, but He wants you to do it
   3. The question is, what are you going to do about it?
      1. Will you willingly take part in God’s plan of redemption for the world?
      2. How many people will be in heaven with you because you shared the Gospel with them?
      3. Are you willing to go?
         1. Everyone always wants missionaries to go out in the world, but rarely do people want to go themselves
            1. Will you go?
               1. To your family?
               2. To your work?
               3. To your community?
               4. To your country?
               5. To the world?
         2. Give short testimony

Conclusion:

To the Jews and Israelites back in Jonah’s day and Jesus’ day, the book of Jonah served as a rebuke for their arrogance and pride in thinking that salvation belonged to them alone. That God desired for the whole world to experience salvation, and that they were to be the herald of that great message! However, let this book be a warning to the Church today. Jesus is coming back soon. One day, we will be raptured up, and we will experience eternal bliss. But those left behind will face eternal damnation. When was the last time that we shed tears over the coming judgment of the Lord on the left behind? When was the last time that we cried for God to save the lost? Where is our urgency to see the lost saved? I stand before you Church with an urgent message. Will we run away like Jonah? Will we stay comfortable in our own salvation? Or will we rise up and go seek out the lost? Will we stand firm in the power of God’s might against the wiles of the devil. We are the Church, the army of God. Jesus said that the enemy cannot stand against us. Who will go? If far off places are out, who will go locally? If locally is out, who will send those who can go? I stand as a crossroads before you today? If Jesus were to describe us today, would He be able to say we were a church who cheerfully obeyed Him in carrying out the Great Commission? Will He be able to say that we are still firm in our love for Him and our love for others?