The Book of Jonah, Lesson 2

Assignment: Read Jonah 2 and John 21:15-17

On August 8, 1974, I was a young U.S. Army infantry officer completing my company command time at Ft Jackson, S.C. The First Sergeant called me into the orderly room to watch a breaking news story. President Richard Nixon was resigning. Although the country was beginning to heal as American troops were returning from Southeast Asia, the Watergate scandal that had haunted him for almost two years had finally reached the point where impeachment seemed inevitable. He had lost political support following the release of the “smoking gun” audio tape. President Nixon’s pride apparently kept him from ever recovering from the blow to his reputation, yet many of those who stood behind him through the ordeal of the Watergate investigation would pay an even greater price.

Charles “Chuck” Colson, Special Counsel to the President, was one of them. The man known as an “evil genius,” “Nixon’s hatchet man” who was “incapable of humanitarian thoughts” would serve seven months in a Maxwell, AL federal prison after pleading guilty to a Watergate-related obstruction of justice charge. After leaving prison, Colson wrote, “I found myself increasingly drawn to the idea God had put me in prison for a purpose and that I should do something for those I had left behind.” (Prison Fellowship website, accessed May 1, 2019) Two years after his release Colson founded Prison Fellowship, the nation’s largest Christian non-profit serving prisoners, former prisoners, and their families. He credited surrendering his life to Jesus as the catalyst of change in his life. He said he realized when God got a hand on his life that there was no turning back and vowed to do anything God asked him to do. Chuck Colson was a man who hit rock bottom before he was able to see God’s outstretched hand, but once he did, God used him in a mighty way. His focus turned from himself to others who needed God’s love and grace. Colson’s mistakes did not define him. God re-wrote his legacy. Our God is a God of second chances. And that is exactly where we pick up the story of Jonah.

Last time we left our hero in the belly of a big fish. He found himself there because he did not want to do what God had told him to do. Jonah was a Hebrew prophet. His job was to tell God’s people what God wanted them to know. And he probably would have been good with that. But, in this case, he was directed to go to Nineveh, a sinful, pagan city, and preach against it because its wickedness had come up before God. We will likely never know everything that contributed to Jonah’s disobedience, although he blamed it on God. But don’t we sometimes find “flimsy” excuses for not following God’s call to serve? We claim not to be “gifted” in a certain area and use that as an excuse not to do what he is calling us to do. Someone smarter than me observed, “God does not call the equipped, he equips the called.”

Jonah attempted to avoid the responsibility God placed on him by running away. How silly is that? Hiding from an omnipotent, omnipresent God? He must have known it was a fool’s errand and likely anticipated that he would pay for his disobedience with his life. But, in his defense, he could have concluded he was in a no-win situation anyway. Death was a possibility if he went to Nineveh. But, by him choosing to die at sea, rather than in Nineveh, Jonah displayed the sin of pride. Pride motivated him to look down on the pagan people to whom God was sending him. Like us in too many instances, Jonah attempted to control his destiny, rather than place his absolute trust in the God who always desires the best for us. And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose. (Romans 8:28 | NIV)

That makes me wonder what was on Jonah’s mind as the sailors pitched him overboard. I have heard that a man who survived a suicide plunge from the Golden Gate Bridge said his last thought as he cleared the guardrail was, “This is the dumbest thing I have ever done.” Was that what was going through Jonah’s mind or was it something else altogether? Was there a sense of pride in having served as a sacrifice for others, relief that his running from the Lord would finally come to an end or, perhaps, sadness or regret at not meeting God’s expectations? I can’t help but believe Jonah was thinking, like that jumper.” Yet, how could he not have felt the full weight of his sin of disobedience? To his surprise, I am sure, instead of waking up in the presence of God, he discovered that he was alive inside another living creature. That feeling of safety or security quickly dissipated when he realized he was alive inside another living creature.

He was not dead, but the word “unpleasant” likely fails to describe the place in which he found himself. He had seaweed wrapped around his head and neck and was covered in the slime and the bits and pieces of pretty much everything that recently passed through the fish’s lips. I think we often imagine a “cartoon” Jonah sitting or walking around in the cavernous insides of a giant fish or sitting on a tongue the size of a highway, but I suspect he was more like the stuffing of a burrito, arms pressed against his sides and fish flesh encasing him entirely. He had no way of knowing where he was but according to the text, seemed to imagine he was sinking to the depths of the ocean. Slowly it dawned on him that for the moment, at least, he was alive—still breathing. While he had life, Jonah had hope. But he realized that his only hope was through God’s intervention. Only his God could save him. But would he? What if God had given up on him? What if he was too bad for God to come to his rescue?

His was the sense of despair that grips the lost, those separated from God’s love by their sin. It is what Jesus meant by “poor in spirit.” Like Jonah’s experience, fear of the consequences of sin and grief over separation from God makes those who do not know him cry out to be saved. This step is missing from the “cheap grace” prevalent in much of Christianity today. Seekers are being offered salvation, but they are not being told they are sinners destined for eternal separation from God. The gospel story has been diluted. Good people are being offered heaven without realizing they are sinners on the highway to hell, “for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23 | NIV). “For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 6:23 | NIV). They are being granted a pardon, but they don’t even know they are on death row. Cheap grace is salvation without repentance. Consequently, they fail to establish a genuine relationship with Jesus. So, how did Jonah respond to his situation? In this chapter we see the final four theological concepts contained in this short book, prayer, repentance, salvation, and grace.

Prayer. When Jonah found himself separated from God by his sin. He did what anyone who makes that discovery for themselves should do. He prayed and he repented. He trusted God for salvation and restoration. “From inside the fish Jonah prayed to the Lord his God. He said: “In my distress I called to the Lord, and he answered me. From deep in the realm of the dead I called for help, and you listened to my cry.” (vv.1-2) Even though Jonah had no right to expect that he would, God heard his plea. When the Holy Spirit calls to our remembrance the ways we have sinned against God, we have two choices. We can continue doing what we have always done, or we can do as Jonah did—call on God through prayer for forgiveness and ask for restoration.

Jonah finally got around to praying. But remember he didn’t pray before he skipped town or even before he was thrown overboard. We don’t even see evidence that he prayed in response to the boat captain’s request. Jonah had to reach a point where he was confronted by his own sin and forced to accept that without God’s intervention there would be serious consequences. Even though he was running from God and had no right to petition him for anything, Jonah called out to God who was waiting for his plea and longing to respond.

God hadn’t banished or abandoned Jonah. But Jonah knew he could not help himself. So, he prayed. God heard his prayers. God hears the prayers of all who call on him in desperation for salvation. “In fact, God is patient, because he wants everyone to turn from sin and no one to be lost” (2 Peter 3:9b | CEV). That is likely one reason Jesus has not yet returned to consolidate his earthly kingdom. God is waiting for more people to turn to him. When we have reached a point where we don’t know where else to turn for help, prayer invites God into our situation. Sometimes God waits to hear from us before he responds, even though he knows what we need before we ask.

When we are not completely surrendered to God. When we do not allow His Holy Spirit to direct our steps. And when we act apart from him, we seldom achieve what he intends for us. At best we get less than he would have given us, and, at worst, we find ourselves in a world of trouble. Our only choice is to reach out to God as Jonah did. Sadly, most of us wait until we find ourselves in a fish’s belly before we call out to him. There is no trouble too large or concern too small for God. There is no space too wide between us and God that he will not close. He can handle our big problems and he loves us enough to delight in helping us with the little things. Because he always has our best interest at heart, he always answers our prayers. But that does not mean we always get what we ask for. Yet we always get what we need to become more like Jesus.

Jonah needed a savior. Unless God did something, his story would end with him being not only ingested, but digested, too. He was reaching out to God. We might expect him to extend an apology or confess his sin, but instead he does something we probably did not expect. He pointed an accusing finger at the only one who could save him.  “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. I said, ‘I have been banished from your sight. . .” (v.3) Jonah realized what he was experiencing was from the Lord’s hand. He recognized God’s sovereignty, but he had his facts a little mixed up. He lamented being banished from God’s sight, but who was it that ran away? While it is true that nothing happens that God does not send or allow, Jonah is offering what has come to be known as “alternative facts” in today’s culture. The sailors reluctantly pitched him overboard, not God. And they did it at Jonah’s urging. He got what he asked for. And now, here he is covered in slimy gunk, encased in a gigantic fish with no way out on his own. Yet, he is poking his finger on God’s chest.

We do the same thing. Some of us stop believing in God when he does not answer our prayers the way we told him to. We find it easier to shift blame to him rather than accept responsibility for our own shortcomings. Behavior that used to be called sin now carries a medical diagnosis, making it an illness or, in some cases acceptable conduct, despite what God’s Word has to say about it. If we were born with a problem, then it must be God’s fault. And when we hear that our conduct is unacceptable in God’s sight, we lash out at those who have the nerve to tell us so. Even when God or someone else can’t be blamed for what we do, we can always adopt the Flip Wilson defense, “The devil made me do it.” We try our best to shift responsibility and blame away from ourselves. Blaming others for our mistakes is a part of who we are as humans. It began with our first parents. Adam blamed Eve and Eve blamed the serpent. Eve was the first to use the Flip Wilson defense, but in the eyes of God they were responsible for their own sin. Yet, like Jonah, they failed to accept any personal responsibility. Blaming others for our mistakes makes us look or feel good at the expense of someone else. It also serves as a backhanded way to attack others, including God. Who has not thought or said to someone we love, “Look what you made me do.”? Fortunately for him, God ignored Jonah’s accusations. And when Jonah responded with faith and prayed, believing God would act, things started looking up for him, “‘yet I will look again toward your holy temple. . . . When my life was ebbing away, I remembered you, Lord, and my prayer rose to you, to your holy temple ‘” (v.4)

We can take a few lessons from Jonah’ prayer.

• Jonah’s pride had not yet abated. I remembered you Lord, (not you remembered me).
• God answers prayer often when we least deserve it.
• We can delay God’s response to our prayers, but faithful prayers are always answered in one of three ways: yes, no, not yet (wait).
• God’s response has everything to do with who he is (his sovereignty) and nothing to do with who we think we are.

Sometimes God responds in a still, small voice that leads us toward a comforting thought or solution. At other times, he speaks to us through confirming words shared by the wise counsel of another person. Typically, he speaks to us through his Word. I am not talking about using the Bible as a Magic Eight Ball like some of us did in our youth. You remember. We closed our eyes, opened the Bible, placed our finger on a passage of Scripture and expected to find the answer to our problem. That is not to say God would not or could not answer like that, but he typically speaks to us through others, prayer and the Scripture we have read or memorized. If you aren’t praying and reading your Bible, you may be missing what God has to say to you. In Jonah’s case, God acted. He did not speak at all. But Jonah received his message loud and clear.

Prayer is the place where our faith meets God’s sovereignty. It takes faith to pray, but he does not answer our prayers because we deserve it. God does it because he wants to, not because he owes us anything. Daniel 9:18 reminds us that we do not make requests of God because we are righteous, but because he is merciful.  God hears us when we pray according to his will. “This is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us” (1 John 5:14 | NIV) And, when it comes to prayer, motives matter. “When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with the wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures” (James 4:3 | NIV).

Before leaving prayer, we should note an interesting observation. Byas (pp. 57-60) asserts Jonah’s prayer is a plagiarized composite of various Psalms: 3, 5, 18, 30, 31, 42 118, 130 and 142. In addition, he compared Jonah’s story to Israel’s, “Just as Jonah was given a command, disobeyed, ended up in death-exile, and was brought back to life by God, so was Israel.” (p. 56) We might also consider that Jesus compared his anticipated experience with Jonah’s. “For as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of a huge fish, so the Son of Man will be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth. (Matthew 12:40 | NIV)

Repentance. And even if our motives are sound, God’s response may be delayed because of some unconfessed sin in our lives. Until we repent, turn from whatever it is that has separated us from God like Jonah did, his response may be delayed. If we look back at today’s Scripture, God heard Jonah immediately, but didn’t instruct the fish to deposit him on the beach until after he had repented. The Psalmist wrote, “If I had cherished sin in my heart, the lord would not have listened; but God has surely listened and heard my voice in prayer. Praise be to God who has not rejected my prayer or withheld his love from me” (Psalm 66:18-20 | NIV).

Even though Jonah still had some unfinished business with God, his prayer was answered after he sought God. When we come to God with a broken and contrite heart, he hears and responds. Jonah prayed when there was nothing more he could do. But he prayed with a confidence that God was not going to leave him where he was. That confidence was reflected in verse 4, “. . .yet I will look again toward your holy temple.’” In his distress Jonah recognized the true value of a relationship with a living God. “Those who cling to worthless idols forfeit the grace that could be theirs. (v. 8) It appears that in his backhanded way, Jonah admitted he needed God and expressed confidence his God would save him. Jonah is finally getting it. People sometimes cling to worthless idols because they don’t know any better. You can recognize the idols in their lives. Just pay attention to where they turn in a crisis.

Many of us stopped clinging to worthless idols thanks to someone sharing the Good News of God’s grace through faith in Jesus. That saving grace is available to anyone for the asking. Yet people of our day, like those of Jonah’s, risk missing out. Rather than placing their trust in Jesus, they trust in insignificant, worthless, sources of temporary satisfaction. They cannot do anything different if they are unaware of what God offers. Jonah knew only his God was worthy of worship. And his God intended for him to make his name known to the people of Nineveh. God used Jonah’s experience of failure and restoration to set him on a new course. He can use us the same way, too.

Jesus gives those of us who have experienced God’s grace and been set on a new course, the same task that he gave Jonah. “Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.” (Matthew 28:19-20 | NIV) Jonah wasn’t bargaining with God when he promised, But I, with shouts of grateful praise, will sacrifice to you. What I have vowed I will make good.  (v.9) He was repenting. He had finally made up his mind to surrender his will to God’s and repent, turn around and go in a different life direction. He intended to do what God had instructed him to do. But first, there was the matter of his current predicament.

Salvation. “For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you profess your faith and are saved” (Romans 10:10 NIV | NIV).

Jonah was justified (made holy in God’s sight) when he put his faith in action by confessing his awareness that, “‘Salvation comes from the Lord.’” His faith saved him. Things changed for the world after Jesus’s incarnation. Now, the only way our faith saves us is through our belief in who Jesus is and what he did to free us from sin’s penalty. “Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to mankind by which we must be saved.” (Acts 4:12 | NIV).

Grace. Jonah learned God is a God of second chances. That is what his grace is all about. It is getting what we don’t deserve and not getting what we do. Jonah’s story serves as a model of restoration through prayer, repentance and faith or trust. The Book of Jonah points to the grace of the New Testament gospel. We need not be defined by our mistakes. Jesus bore our shame and guilt on Calvary’s cross. We have all disobeyed God or failed him in some spectacular way.

If you don’t have the relationship with God you desire because of shame or fear your failure is too great, trust what you have discovered from the lives of Jonah and Chuck Colson. Your mistakes need not define you. Our God is a God of second chances. Pray for forgiveness, determine to follow Jesus as your lord and savior and trust God for salvation. In the face of that truth, the last verse of chapter 2 is truly significant. And the Lord commanded the fish, and it vomited Jonah onto dry land. (V. 10) Jonah landed on the sand a new person—a new creation. In the last two chapters we have seen the sailors and Jonah saved by God’s grace. We’ll have to wait until next time to find out what happens in Nineveh.

Discussion

1. What are your initial observations from what you just read?
2. What was behind Jonah’s disobedience?
3. Have you ever turned to God in hopelessness? If so, what did you discover?
4. What worthless idol (s) was/were in Jonah’s life? How about your life?
5. Is it possible for church doctrine or dogma to become an idol?
6. What is the point of praying when God already knows what we need?
7. Does God speak to us today? If so, how? 
8. Can you think of a time when he spoke to you?
9. How could you compare what is going on with Jonah at this point in terms of Israel’s history?
10. What lessons can you take from Peter’s reinstatement and Jonah’s return to dry land?

(Rev. 11/16/2022)