Old Testament

Jonah: The Repentant King

July 26, 2021 by David Noland Leave a Comment

The word reached the king of Nineveh, and he arose from his throne, removed his robe, covered himself with sackcloth, and sat in ashes.

And he issued a proclamation and published through Nineveh, “By the decree of the king and his nobles: Let neither man nor beast, herd nor flock, taste anything. Let them not feed or drink water, but let man and beast be covered with sackcloth, and let them call out mightily to God. Let everyone turn from his evil way and from the violence that is in his hands. Who knows? God may turn and relent and turn from his fierce anger, so that we may not perish.”

When God saw what they did, how they turned from their evil way, God relented of the disaster that he had said he would do to them, and he did not do it.
Jonah 3:6-10

The King of Nineveh repents (courtesy of Superbook, (c) 2013)

Humble leadership inspires humble followers, and God honors the humble who submit to His authority. In the same way that rebelliousness begets rebellion from the top down, so does repentance beget repentance when its starts at the top and trickles its way down to those who would follow. If we expect to see revival in the land, it must begin in our leadership – specifically with the leadership in the body of Christ.

The King Repents

We’ve already covered in detail how the Assyrian kingdom was arguably one of the most violent kingdoms of its time, if not in history. The depth of the sin of the Assyrians was well known and is well known to us today. If an earthly kingdom is to experience revival and escape the coming wrath of a holy and righteous God, then the leadership of that kingdom must learn submission to the Almighty. Even if that kingdom is a pagan kingdom, the Father will show mercy at the sign of repentance. A close look at the humility of the king of Nineveh demonstrates the depth of his repentance as “he arose from his throne [stepped down from his place of authority], removed his robe [stepped away from his visual appearance of authority], covered himself with sackcloth [a visual demonstration of humilty], and sat in ashes [a symbolic representation of mourning over his sin].” (Jonah 3:6 parenthetical commentary mine). But it didn’t stop there as the king opens his mouth to speak.

He issues a proclamation – a decree – a new law, if you will. Interestingly, not only is the king declaring a nationwide fast from food AND water that extends all the way down to the livestock, but he has the full support of his cabinet of advisors (“nobles”). “Let everyone turn from his evil way and from the violence that is in his hands.” (Jonah 3:8b) It is the indictment of who was guilty (“everyone”) and a confession of specific sin (“violence”).

If the body of Christ is ever to experience revival, it must begin in the leadership of our churches. If a local church is to experience a revival, we must take a page from the book of this pagan king and begin with pastors and teachers and deacons and elders falling on our face at the altar humbly confessing our sin, whatever it may be, in genuine remorse and mourning. Crocodile tears and false humility will not deceive the eyes of God who sees to the heart of man. Projections of humility that draw attention to the penitent and away from Jesus will draw even more judgement. Humbly lowering oneself on the altar, visibly demonstrating heartfelt humility and repentance, and confessing and mourning over our sin is the only way to begin to see the Spirit of God move within the hearts of His people.

The People Repent

Even a pagan king can recognize the need for repentance in the hopes that God would have mercy upon them. Even when the prophet does not offer any hope of a stay of judgement, the king puts forth the proposition “Who knows? God may turn and relent and turn from his fierce anger, so that we may not perish.” (Jonah 3:9) Jonah never offered repentance as a path to salvation. He never offered any hope of Elohim would withhold His righteous hand. Yet somehow, the king of Nineveh (speaking from a pagan context) held out hope that if he and his people would submit to this foreign God, He would have mercy upon them.

The name of God “Elohim” typically has 2 functional linguistic uses in the Hebrew language. One, it is overwhelmingly translated in scripture as one of the names of God, more specifically the Godhead. The word Elohim is always used (2346 times) in the plural intensive tense with a singular meaning. It is the name that embodies the fullness of God in three persons – the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit – in One being. It is the name of God from Genesis when He said “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” (Genesis 1:26) It is the name by which not only is God the Creator, but He is also Ruler, a trait that He instilled in us as His special creation as bearers of His image.

Secondly Elohim denotes God not only has Creator, but also as Ruler and Judge. As Divine Ruler of the Universe, the Creator and Him alone has the authority to make the rules and to Judge righteously by those rules. Even though we as humans are given authority over all of the creatures of the earth (except for other humans), we are still subject to His rule and authority. No where in the God’s design for man did He give us authority over other humans – either by ethnicity, race, gender, or nationality. We are all created to be subject to Him and His authority, while representing His authority over all of the remainder of creation. Yet in our pride and hubris we have found it necessary to live lives of violence against one another.

Throughout history we have demonstrated a propensity for war and dominance over other peoples. We have subjected entire civilizations to the ravages of slavery and subjugation. Empires have risen and fallen in the name of exerting dominance and nationalistic pride. Today on a global scale, the sin of human bondage and slavery is at an all-time high in the history of the world with over 40.3 million people trapped in bondage. Women and girls account for 99% of the victims of the commercial sex industry that comprises an estimated (likely underestimated) 4.8 million of the 24.9 million in forced labor. Wars in the name of religion and nationalism rage; today over 200 countries in the world are in active armed conflict within or with one another. Ethnic cleansing and genocide continues in various nations unabated. God’s people continue to experience martyrdom at the hands of pagan zealots daily around the globe. Yet God continues to withhold His righteous judgement for the sake of the few that call out His name in humble repentance.

“God saw what they did, how they turned from their evil way” (Jonah 3:10) And in the case of Nineveh, the people followed suit with their king. The writer of Jonah records that they repented of their sin of violence and evil. This coincides with a period of relative peace and trade with the the kingdom of Israel during the reign of Jeroboam II, who reigned for 41 years. However, this period of peace and trade led to other internal problems of materialism and idolatry, for which Jeroboam II himself was judged as “doing evil in the eyes of the Lord.” (2 Kings 14:24). However, Jeroboam did restore the borders of Israel and God had mercy upon Israel as well:

He restored the border of Israel from Lebo-hamath as far as the Sea of the Arabah, according to the word of the LORD, the God of Israel, which he spoke by his servant Jonah the son of Amittai, the prophet, who was from Gath-hepher. For the LORD saw that the affliction of Israel was very bitter, for there was none left, bond or free, and there was none to help Israel. But the LORD had not said that he would blot out the name of Israel from under heaven, so he saved them by the hand of Jeroboam the son of Joash.
2 Kings 14:25-27

God Relents

When the people submit to God’s authority, He faithfully relents in His prescribed judgement. Prophecy is either forth-telling (speaking to the people on behalf of God) or foretelling (predictions of the future as God has dictated) Foretelling prophecy is always pointing to either the coming of Christ or warning of the coming kingdom or righteousness of God. Prophetic foretelling is always either conditional or unconditional. Unconditional foretelling indicates there is nothing that will sway or change what God has declared to pass. It is the sovereign authority and privilege of God who exists outside of the confines of time to declare what will and what will not come to pass now or in the future. It is by His Providence, His “pro-video” or fore-sight and fore-knowledge, that He already knows the decisions that we will make in this life and the resulting consequences (both good and bad).

However, conditional prophecy is always a matter of addressing sin within the heart of an individual or a people. Perhaps the most often quoted conditional prophecy of all of Scripture is 2 Chronicles 7:14 that states “if My people who are called by My name humble themselves, and pray and seek My face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and heal their land.” In fact, this prophecy is perhaps the most misapplied declaration of God in our American society as it is so often used to call the entire nation to repentance. However, the passage is very clearly address to the people of God, the ones who are called by His name. We as Christians are called to humble ourselves, and pray and seek His face and turn from our wicked ways. We must stop puffing ourselves up with pride and hubris thinking we are better than the culture around us. We must fall on our knees in prayer and confess our sin of pride. We must stop with our constant infighting and bickering and politicizing of the gospel. We must repent of the idolatrous worship of our leaders. We must repent of watering down our theology to make it compatible and palatable to a world that is hostile to the Word of God. We must repent of the sin of bowing before the golden calf of materialism. We must repent of our lack of discernment. We must repent of our lack of intentionality when it comes to discipleship. We must repent of our lack of effort to evangelize the lost and fulfill the Great Commission. We must repent of our refusal to serve our neighbor, no matter the cost. We must repent of abandoning the truth of Scripture in favor of the lie of the world.

Until we, the people of God, repent of our wicked ways, how can we ever expect the world to repent? Until we live the gospel out in our lives, how can we ever expect the gospel to have any effectual power in our world? Our Heavenly Father rejoices at our repentance. He honors our repentance. And He relents of His judgement as a result of our repentance. It is not our remorse or our sorrow over our sin that causes the Father to withhold His judgement. It is our repentance and our submission to His authority. It’s the laying aside of our own self-centered, self-driven desires that activates His mercy and grace in our lives. We will never deserve His mercy or His grace, but He stands ready to offer it to us at the first hint of repentance and submission to Him by faith.

Let me be very clear. Your repentance does not save you. Your faith does not heal you. Mercy and grace are the prerogative of the Giver of all good gifts who stands ready to provide to all who ask and receive. However unless you as an individual recognize your need for the Savior by the inspiration and power of the Holy Spirit, and submit to the authority of the Father to the glory of the Son Jesus Christ, you will never experience His mercy and grace in your life. He paid too high a price to give mercy and grace haphazardly. Mercy and grace are only free to us because He paid the price to make it possible.

Jonah: The Prophecy of Doom

July 19, 2021 by David Noland Leave a Comment

So Jonah arose and went to Nineveh, according to the word of the LORD. Now Nineveh was an exceedingly great city, three days’ journey in breadth. Jonah began to go into the city, going a day’s journey. And he called out, “Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown!” And the people of Nineveh believed God. They called for a fast and put on sackcloth, from the greatest of them to the least of them.
Jonah 3:3-5

When God gives a prophet a message to deliver, the heart of the Father is always a heart calling for repentance, even if we selfishly desire the destruction of those the message is intended for. The message of the prophet in nearly every case in the Old and New Testament is almost always a call to repentance. Yet the message that Jonah delivers is curiously different. It doesn’t include a call for repentance, but taken at face value, it is a declaration of impending and inescapable doom.

A Great City

As we have previously discussed, at the time of the events of Jonah, Nineveh was the capital of the Assyrian empire and was likely the largest city in the world at the time. So large, that the writer of Jonah states that the breadth of the city was a three day’s journey. The best estimates of distance at that time put that between 60-75 miles across. For a city in this time period, that was huge.

The distance that Jonah would have had to travel on foot to reach Nineveh at the closest point on the Mediterranean Sea would be approximately 350 miles, which would have taken Jonah at a similar rate of travel approximately 2 weeks. Contrast that with the distance that Jonah could have gone direct to Nineveh (approximately 725 miles from the Southern Kingdom of Judah if he came from Jerusalem) and the fact that he intended to travel 3000 miles the opposite direction to Tarshish in Spain, beyond the Rock of Gibraltar and almost as far as you can get on the European continent from Nineveh.

The Assyrian Empire covered approximately 75,000 square miles of mostly desert land at the tail end of what is known as the Fertile Crescent (see figure above). Contrast that with the Roman Empire that reached its peak at over 5 million square miles and then the Mongol Empire that extended over 9.25 million square miles, you can see that Assyria did not ultimate reach elite empire status.

However, the Assyrians did offer up a reputation of cruelty that was unmatched throughout history as they invented some of the most gruesome methods of torture and execution that mankind has ever devised, include live flayings, impalement, and earliest forms of crucifixion – all of which the military students of the Roman Empire would later study and perfect to horrific measures. And Nineveh was at the heart of it all.

The Assyrian Empire was a known thorn in the side of Israel and Judah for decades and ultimately led to the first deportation of Israelite captives under Tilgath-Pileser III in 740 BC and a second deportation of 27,290 captives from Samaria under Sargon II in 721 BC, and a final deportation from Judah under Salmaneser V a year later. In 612 BC, the Babylonian Empire under Nebuchadnezzar defeated the Assyrian Empire at Nineveh and deported the dispersed Hebrews to Babylon in modern day Baghdad, Iraq.

A Great Repentance

Interestingly, the events of the book of Jonah occur some time during the reign of Jeroboam II (786-746 BC). It is likely that the events occur somewhere in the middle of Jeroboam’s 40-year reign over Israel as a contemporary of Kings Amaziah and Uzziah over the Southern Kingdom of Judah. The message from the prophet was a simple declaration of impending doom. The term that is translated “overthrow” is often interpreted as “destroyed”, but the actual Hebrew translation of the word means “to change or transform”. Typically this would be a reference to being overthrown by a foreign power. Which you can see, actually happened in 612 BC at the hands of the Babylonians.

There was no call for repentance in the message delivered by Jonah: “Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown!” (Jonah 3:4) Considering Jonah’s distaste for delivering the message to Nineveh in the first place, I often wonder if Jonah edited the message from God to leave out the element of hope through repentance. Even in Jonah 1:2, there is no indication that God intends to provide any hope of deliverance.

The whole episode almost mirrors the events around the history of Sodom and Gamorrah as the same term is used to described what happened there in Genesis 19. However, the same word is used in Exodus 7:15, 17, 20 to describe transformation referencing how God “turned” Moses staff into a serpent and how He “turned” the Nile into blood. The same word is also used to described how Pharaoh “changed his mind toward the people” who were questioning why he let the Israelites go. Over and over again there is this idea of transformation and change, and typically in response to a challenge to the authority of an earthly ruler. And this instance was no different.

Yet, the people of Nineveh got the message loud and clear. Having tormented Israel for years with raids and skirmishes, the Assyrians were familiar with the God of Israel. They knew of the history of those who dared to defy Him, including the Philistines and the Hittites. They also knew of His mercy and grace, because the people immediately believed God and repented of their sinfulness, from the lowest of the low all the way up to the king of Nineveh.

The message of God when faithfully delivered is always intended to inspire repentance. See the word of God through one of Jonah’s contemporaries, the prophet Isaiah:

For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven
and do not return there but water the earth,
making it bring forth and sprout,
    giving seed to the sower and bread to the eater,
so shall my word be that goes out from my mouth;
    it shall not return to me empty,
but it shall accomplish that which I purpose,
    and shall succeed in the thing for which I sent it.
Isaiah 55:10, 11

What God intends for His word to fulfill will be accomplished in spite of any attempts we may selfishly impose to suppress His message. He is the Sovereign King of the Universe. He is faithful and true. And if God intends to see repentance in the hearts of those who receive His message, then that will come to pass, even if we try to stifle that message with our own selfish means of delivery.

A Great God

If Almighty God desires for a people to repent, He will make a way for that repentance. However, He will not force repentance and will allow the consequences of sin and selfishness to take its own natural course. Clearly it wasn’t long before the repentant Ninevites forgot their vow and returned to their wickedness. Ultimately change did come as the Assyrian Empire was eventually overthrown by the Babylonians, who then became a crucible for the people of Israel and gave rise the prophets Daniel and Ezekiel. Later the events of Esther under the reign of the Persian Empire would come to pass and eventually the prophets Ezra and Nehemiah would lead the people back to Israel and restore the walls of the fallen Kingdom and restore the worship to Almighty God.

However, even the repentance of God’s chosen people of Israel was short-lived. The last book of the Old Testament issues a warning to the people of Israel from the prophet Malachi: “Behold I will send you Elijah the prophet before the great and awesome day of the Lord comes. And he will turn the hearts of the fathers to their children and the hearts of the children to their fathers, lest I come and strike the land with a decree of utter destruction.” (Malachi 4:5,6)

The Word of God demands obedience for the people of God and calls all people to surrender to His authority as King of the Universe. Those who do not recognize His authority and submit to Him will ultimately see utter destruction. Either through the natural, temporal consequences of their own sin, or the eternal consequences of separation from a relationship with Him. The choice is yours. Which will it be?

Jonah: A Return to Dry Land

July 15, 2021 by David Noland Leave a Comment

And the LORD spoke to the fish, and it vomited Jonah out upon the dry land.
Then the word of the LORD came to Jonah the second time, saying, “Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and call out against it the message that I tell you.”
Jonah 2:10-3:2

When we finally reach a place of humble repentance, God has you right where He wants you and He will place you right where He needs you for His purposes. And there is no better place than we’d rather be than in the place where His will is perfected in and through us. A safe harbor of dry land on the shores of a stormy sea that rages around us, no longer buried in the belly of a fishy situation that threatens to slowly eat away at our patience and resolve. It is can sometimes be a violent adjustment from being under your circumstances to being ripped out and place above those circumstances on rocky, dry ground.

A Violent Upheaval

Imagine Jonah, sitting snug in the stomach of a giant fish, still consigned to prayer for three days. He’s slowly being digested. His skin is likely bleached and ulcered. His hair likely falling out from the stomach acid. His fingernails soft and decaying. His clothes falling away in tatters. Perhaps after three days of no food, and only salty sea water to drink, Jonah is growing weak and tired. Suddenly, there is a jerking convulsion and the mouth of the fish opens and in pours the light of day and Jonah quickly finds himself propelled back into the ocean and onto shore, covered in seaweed.

Just as sin is a violent rending of the relationship between mankind and Almighty God, redemption in itself has violent repercussions. Redemption requires a price, a price paid in blood. It was the price of God’s own Son who was betrayed and then scourged and beaten beyond recognition. He had a crown of thorns jammed down on His head – thorns hard as nails that likely pierced through to His skull, as blood ran down His head and covered His face. Patches of His beard remain, having been ripped out of His cheeks and chin. He is forced to lift the weight of a heavy wooden crossbeam and carry it over a mile through the busy streets of a festive Jerusalem and up a tall hill of a smelly, filthy garbage dump called Golgotha. As the blood congeals on His back, His sparse clothing sticks to His raw, torn skin. The Roman soldiers ripped the clothes from His back, reopening His fresh wounds. They lay Him down with His ripped back against a dry, rough, splintered stake and attach the crossbeam as they drive iron spikes through His wrists and ankles. As they lift up the cross, the soldiers guide it and then drop it violently into a hole in the ground, causing Him to lurch forward against the weight of the nails under the weight of His own torn and worn body. Over the next six hours, He would struggle to breathe under His own weight, occasionally using His legs to push up against the spike in His angles to utters words like “Father, forgive them for they know not what they do.” (Luke 23:34). All of this while enduring the shame of a mocking crowd of onlookers and soldiers gambling over pieces of what remained of His only worldly possessions – the clothes from His back. Near 3pm in the afternoon, the sky grows dark as He lifts Himself one last time to cry out “Tetelestai! It is finished!” (John 19:28) as He died and immediately an great earthquake shakes the world.

Just as Jonah experienced a violent redemption, so did we. Jesus endured the most immeasurable pain and suffering in order to restore our relationship with our Father in Heaven. Once and for all, the punishment that was reserved for us was meted out upon Himself as He hung in our place as our sacrificial Lamb. In so doing, He made a way for us to be able to stand on the safe, dry ground of life.

A Safe Haven

Interestingly, the Hebrew word used in Jonah for “dry ground” (הַיַּבָּשָֽׁה יַבָּשָׁה – yabāšâ) is the same word used in Exodus 14:16, 22, 29 to describe the safe pathway that God provided through Moses for the Israelites as they crossed the divided Red Sea fleeing the slavery of Egypt. Just as the dry ground was safety for Jonah, so was the dry ground a safe pathway for the Hebrews. Just as the dry ground was a safe haven for the Hebrews, so is the dry ground at the foot of the cross a safe haven for us fleeing the slavery, bondage, and captivity of sin.

We were not meant to spend our lives tossed about in the stormy sea of life, pushed here and there, to and fro by the waves of circumstances and emotional turmoil. He set us free from the bondage of sin and gave us one another as the church to be a safe haven for growth and guidance so that we might not be carried away by the winds and waves of life and circumstance and the lies of the world. The body of Christ is our dry ground. The bride of Christ is where God intends for us to be for the sake of His kingdom.

Anyone who says they don’t need to attend church in order to honor God is surely deceived. You can believe that God exists all you want, but even the devil believes this and it isn’t enough to redeem them. (James 2:19) Not only does our redemption require our repentance, it expects our obedience and fellowship. If you are married, you honor your spouse by not only defending them and wearing your ring as an outward expression of your covenant relationship, but you also listen to them. You honor your covenant with them with your loving and caring fellowship with them. In terms of covenant relationships, including that with your spouse and with the bride of Christ, love is spelled “T-I-M-E.” It requires your time and investment of yourself. God has gifted you as a believer by the power of His Holy Spirit to be a part of His bride for the purpose of building up His bride. “And he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and teachers,to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, so that we may no longer be children, tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness in deceitful schemes.” (Ephesians 4:11-14)

A Restored Purpose

As we are redeemed from our sin and restored to a right relationship with the Father, He not only gives us purpose, but He restores our originally designed purpose. If you are a believer that has been rebellious or resistant to God’s call on your life, once you humbly repent and submit to Him, His call doesn’t change because His design for you hasn’t changed.

30 years ago this summer was the first time I went on a summer mission trip – Cochise County, AZ. I spent 10 weeks traipsing across St. David, Sierra Vista, Tombstone, Bisbee, and other parts of what was once known as the Gadsen Purchase on the Mexican border of Arizona. My partner was a young man by the name of Clay Bogle, from the sprawling metropolis of Bowling Green, KY. It was a wonderful summer, but was full of personal challenges due to my own immaturity in my faith. However, even then I felt the call of God upon my heart to full-time vocational ministry. Two years later, I sought to nurture this call as I further explored ministry opportunities through missionary endeavors as I traveled to Hong Kong for 8 weeks, teaching conversational English in an effort to develop relationships that would lead to gospel conversations. During that trip, I firmly believed that God was calling me to the mission field full-time. However, as I returned home, my life slowly began to unravel in a sea of incremental compromises of faith until eventually in 1996, I left my faith and fellowship altogether.

Much of my Christian experience between 1990-1996 was marked by being a “Lone Ranger” Christian. While I had grown up in the church, I wasn’t saved until 1990 a week after graduating high school. After that point, however, I did not experience any discipleship other than what I could seek out on my own. I floundered endlessly in a sea of confusion. I found myself participating in both the Baptist Student Union and the Assembly of God Chi Alpha campus ministry. Over the years, I gained many friends through both organizations and I am still friends with many of those same people today. However, being new to my faith, my involvement in these two widely different Christian faith communities led me to more confusion than discipline. I was torn in two different directions out of an altruistic, naive belief that I could reconcile my Baptist upbringing with a more charismatic faith experience that appealed to my emotions and love of modern worship and music that was not common in the Baptist experience at that time. Because I had not experienced any discipleship during my years as a new believer, I was tossed here and there by various doctrines, some of which were mutually exclusive of one another and often led to more confrontation than fellowship.

Since my restoration to my faith, the call of God on my life has not changed, but it still took me a few years of struggling with discipleship to finally reach of point of surrendering to that call, which led me to where I am today as a student at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth, TX. One thing that I have learned and that has become a personal passion of mine is the importance of discipling new believers in their faith. Titus 2 teaches us that it is important to “teach what accords with sound doctrine.” (Titus 2:1) The chapter goes on to explains how older men are to teach younger men and older women are to teach younger women how to live out their faith in their families and in their doctrine, their careers, their behaviors, and way of life so “that the word of God may not be reviled.” (Titus 2:5) It is critical that mature believers seek out new believers and teach them the fundamentals of the faith in order to give them a solid foundation upon which to build their new life – dry ground, if you will. It is imperative that we recognize that the initiative must begin with the mature believer. An immature, new believer doesn’t know what they don’t know. In fact, they are not likely to seek out discipleship unless it is clearly explained how important discipleship training is to their growth and development in faith.

If you are a mature believer looking for resources on how you can influence new believers in the faith, I have some resources available for you listed by age group of your target disciples:

For children from preschool up to 5th grade: https://www.awana.org (This is designed to be used in a group teaching context. Check with your local church to see if they participate in this discipleship program.)
For middle school through high school: https://disciple6.com (This is a 100% free resource)
For adults: The Disciple’s Path (1 year program, 4 13-week sections – very low cost resource)
For discipleship leaders: Real-Life Discipleship (This is a resource for training disciples to be disciple makers. It teaches the discipleship cycle and provides insight into the importance of disciples making disciples.)

When God sets you down on “dry ground”, be ready. You have a mission to prepare for. It might not look pretty, and your life might not look like you have it all together – still covered in the grime, stink, and filth of your past life. But Jesus is there to help wash you off, clean you up, and build you up so that you can be prepared for the life He has in mind for you. A life that is guaranteed to blow your socks off and give you a renewed sense of wonder as you walk through the wilderness of life.

Jonah: A Prayer of Repentance

July 8, 2021 by David Noland Leave a Comment

Then Jonah prayed to the LORD his God from the belly of the fish
Jonah 2:1

When you find yourself stuck in a trap of your own making, what is your usual first response? Do you blame someone else, perhaps even the devil? Do you sit and wallow in the mud like a half-satisfied pig? Do you find yourself seeking ingenious methods of getting yourself out of your situation, only to become frustrated when your own understanding provides zero results? Or do you cry out for help and learn from your mistake?

I can assure you, all of us at one time or another have fallen into some muck or mire as a result of our own poor decisions and sinful choices. And more often than not, our usual response is to either blame someone else or just sit paralyzed in the midst of the filth. It usually isn’t until we have tried to claw our way out of the stickiness only to find ourselves even more stuck than before that we finally give up and cry out for help. It’s human nature. However, Jonah recognized that the direness of his situation was due to his own disobedience and that God not only brought about judgment to get his attention, but provided a miraculous safe haven to protect him in the midst of his rebellion. Yes, Jonah was trapped in the belly of a large fish, likely very cramped and squeezed inside with little room to move or even squirm. Yet, Jonah “called out to the Lord, out of my distress and He answered me; out of the belly of Sheol I cried, and You heard my voice.” (Jonah 2:2)

Jonah recognized that not only was he in big trouble, but he also recognized who put him there.

For you cast me into the deep,
into the heart of the seas,
and the flood surrounded me;
all your waves and your billows
passed over me.
Jonah 2:3

Jonah recognized that God Himself put him in the belly of that fish as judgment for his sin of rebellion and disobedience. All too often from today’s modern populist pulpits, I hear theology espoused that not only disavows the reality of God’s judgment, but outright denies His holiness in favor of His mercy and grace and love. Anything “bad” (by our own selfish definitions) is a product of Satan or is demonic in origin. It denies the reality of sin and its resulting consequences.

Mercy and grace by definition require that we deserve judgment. Mercy means we don’t receive the judgment that we deserve. Grace means we receive favor when we deserve judgment and punishment for our actions. To deny the reality of the God’s holiness and righteousness as far superior to our own is to recreate God into our own image, which is the very definition of idolatry.

Discernment of your situation and how you got there can often be tricky, but discernment begins with humility. Humility is not humiliation, but rather it is a sort of controlled strength that allows you to see yourself in the big picture. Discernment requires first to look at ourselves and our situation with a different set of lenses that expose the truth of who we are in the light of who He is.

But I with the voice of thanksgiving
will sacrifice to you;
what I have vowed I will pay.
Salvation belongs to the LORD!
Jonah 2:9

Jonah recognized that His current predicament and suffering were a result of His own sin and rebellion. He also recognized the Father’s grace and mercy in capturing him and protecting him in the belly of this fish. As dark and smelly as the case may be, it was better than drowning in the sea of his own wasted life and time. And that is a cause for a sacrifice of thanksgiving.

Interestingly, a great theology truth is also revealed in the last line of Jonah’s prayer: “Salvation belongs to the LORD!” Salvation is not ours to give or to take. It is God’s and God’s alone. He alone has the power to save. We can’t save ourselves by the works of our hands, the power of our confession, or even our own faith. That is the exclusive domain of the sovereign Lord Almighty. He alone has the authority to save us. He alone has the authority to condemn. He alone is righteous and holy. Thus He alone is worthy of our worship and worthy to be praised.

On the day of Pentecost, Peter made the bold proclamation of the exclusivity of Jesus’ authority to save: “This Jesus is the stone that was rejected by you, the builders, which has become the cornerstone. And there is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.” (Acts 4:11, 12) Just as Jonah had rejected God’s command to go to Nineveh and preach repentance, the Jews of Jesus’ day rejected Jesus and His message of repentance. However, it was His sacrifice on Calvary that provides salvation. His sacrifice alone makes Him worthy of our worship and praise. And it is by His name and His authority alone that we might be saved.

Jonah: A Fishy Grace

July 7, 2021 by David Noland Leave a Comment

And the Lord appointed a great fish to swallow up Jonah. And Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights.
Jonah 1:17

Even in the midst of judgment, God Almighty will often provide a means of mercy in accordance with His sovereignty in order to perfect His will. Even when the natural consequences of our sin seem to crush us, God Himself will prepare a respite in the midst of our judgment in order to give us an opportunity to repent and humbly turn to Him in obedience. Sometimes that mercy may come from the most unlikely, and miraculous, of places.

Divine Aseity

The first thing I want you to notice today is “The Lord appointed…”. One of the great attributes of Almighty God is that He is. His very name, YHWH, is literally translated as “I am”. When addressing Him in Scripture, in this specific verse, the writer of Jonah uses the word יְהֹוָה which is pronounced “Yᵊhōvâ“, which is translated as “the existing One.” God Himself is self-existing – an attribute of His divinity articulated as the doctrine of divine aseity. God was not created by human hands; He exists beyond our capacity for creation. And He does not need our permission to exist. This is a truth that is not only celebrated throughout the Old Testament, but reiterated by the writers of the New Testament. God is and He doesn’t require your belief in order to be.

The God who made the world and everything in it, being Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in temples made by man, nor is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mankind life and breath and everything.
Acts 17:24, 25

A basking shark (c) Jeremey Stafford-Deitsch

By virtue of His divine aseity, He alone has authority over Heaven and Earth and all of creation as our Creator. He alone has full authority to move within space and time to exact His will as He sees fit for His purposes. As Creator He also has the right to expect certain behaviors of His creation and when we step outside of His design, consequences, both natural and supernatural will manifest as a fulfillment of the simple law of cause and effect. Yet, God in His desire to see His will perfected will sometimes step in with a divine appointment that is designed to provide mercy and inspire repentance and submission to His will.

Divine Appointment

Because He is and He is the Lord of all creation, He has the authority to bend the rules of nature to His liking and His need. The word that is translated “appointed” is in effect a term of official assignment. It implies intent with a specific purpose. Just as judges are appointed and pastors are ordained, so God has appointed a “great fish to swallow up Jonah.”

Skeptics through the years have tried to deny or reinterpret this passage as “apocryphal” due to a fundamental lack of knowledge or belief in the possibility that God would use a fish to swallow a man. The passage does not say that God created some new species of fish that was large enough to swallow a man whole. Now does it say that it was a whale that shallowed Jonah. In the Mediterranean Sea there lives the second largest known species of fish called the basking shark. Reaching sizes of up to 10 meters and weighing as much as 7 tons, the basking shark is generally a harmless fish whose tiny teeth serve to filter planton and other small fish through its gills. Its mouth and jaws can open wide enough to swallow a small man in a single gulp.

Now I’m not suggesting that this particular species is explicitly what God used to contain Jonah in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea. In fact, the only suggestion I make is to point out the natural possibility of a fish large enough to swallow a man whole and to point to the idea that God Himself will often use that which He has already created in order to get our attention when we have gone astray.

Divine Authority

Jonah remained in the belly of that fish for 3 days and 3 nights. Imagine resting in stomach acid of a fish that is only used to eating plankton and suddenly he has this large human in his belly. Naturally the fish’s body would compensate and produce more stomach acid in an effort to try to break down the foreign substance in the digestive system. Prolonged exposure to this acid would bleach the skin and cause one’s hair to fall out due to root damage. Imagine the sight when three days and three nights later, Jonah is coughed up on a beach near where he began his journey on the ship. I can imagine it would not have been an attractive sight and would not likely have endeared the people of Nineveh to come near to hear him speak.

For three days and three nights, the prison belly of that fish acted as a sort of tomb for a man that by all rights should have been dead. By the authority of God, Jonah was imprisoned with the body of large fish who would then carry him to near his intended destination all along. Even in the midst of judgment, God provided a shelter to protect Jonah from drowning in the middle of the storm. Even in the midst of discipline, God provided a safe place for Jonah to come to his senses and repent of his abandonment of the Almighty and submit to His authority.

When you abandon God, rest assured He will not abandon you. Even as He disciplines those whom He loves, He provides an opportunity for grace. Even when we deserve death, He gives us life. When we deserve isolation, He provides us with fellowship. When we deserve pain, He provides comfort. His love for us drives Him to seek our hearts. His love for His creation compels Him to exercise His authority to draw us to Him, no matter the cost. And it isn’t always going to come the way we might expect. Sometimes it’s something as simple as a phone call from an old friend. Sometimes it’s the righteous anger of an adversary. Sometimes it’s the discerning words of a pastor or mentor. Whatever the case may be, He will always pursue you with a grace that may sometimes smell noxious to the natural senses, but will always be for our good and for His purposes. The real question is whether or not we will embrace that good and submit to His purpose.

Jonah: Man Overboard

July 6, 2021 by David Noland Leave a Comment

Then they said to him, “What shall we do to you, that the sea may quiet down for us?” For the sea grew more and more tempestuous. He said to them, “Pick me up and hurl me into the sea; then the sea will quiet down for you, for I know it is because of me that this great tempest has come upon you.” Nevertheless, the men rowed hard to get back to dry land, but they could not, for the sea grew more and more tempestuous against them. Therefore they called out to the Lord, “O Lord, let us not perish for this man’s life, and lay not on us innocent blood, for you, O Lord, have done as it pleased you.” So they picked up Jonah and hurled him into the sea, and the sea ceased from its raging. Then the men feared the Lord exceedingly, and they offered a sacrifice to the Lord and made vows.
Jonah 1:11-16

Jonah being thrown overboard. Source: https://injarsofclay.livejournal.com/252899.html

When you claim to be a follower of the Most High God, yet it is readily apparent that you are not following Him but rather you are running from Him, even unbelievers will see the consequences of your disobedience. Before I experienced the grace of God, I was a bit of an obnoxious, arrogant, loud-mouth of a kid. Ask anyone that I went to high school with and they will likely agree. I thought I was smarter than everyone else and I let them know it.

In 1995, circumstances and actions that I had taken in my life began to cause things to unravel and get out of control. I was left dissatisfied with my lack of direction, lack of discipline, and lack of definition in my life. I knew I wanted to serve God and that He had called me to missions, but after 4 summer missionary appointments and coming back excited only to be let down when the emotion didn’t sustain itself on a secular college campus, I grew discouraged. I found myself often engaging in doctrinal debates with people of other denominations. At one point, I even tried to work with other believers to create an “interdenominational council” to help foster cooperations for the Kingdom among other Christian organizations on campus. At the time, it failed miserably.

I became angry with God and everyone around me and decided I was better off running away from it all. I dropped out of college and moved to San Antonio, TX in 1996. Just when I thought starting over somewhere else leaving God and my faith behind, the storm had only just begun. Life started spiraling. I couldn’t find a job and was on the verge of eviction and homelessness. After 2 months of searching, I finally found work as a customer service agent for a national airline. Things started looking up, but my life outside of work was still a barren wasteland as I crawled into a bottle trying to hide from the pain in my heart and the storm that raged around me. Furthermore, I was determined to bring others down with me. The group of “friends” I hung out with were a lot of fun at first and then as the consequences of my decisions became more apparent and far-reaching, they all eventually tossed me aside and I rarely saw or heard from any of them again.

When you actively run from God, He will catch up with you. Inevitably, the consequences of your sin will spill over on those around you and it will become obvious that you are the problem. When that happens, you better know how to swim in the sea of your sorrows alone. Especially when they know the reason for your situation is your sin of abandoning God.

Additionally, rare as it may be, it is possible that the consequences of your sin will turn others to Him. They can see that your life is spiraling out of control because of your disobedience and out of fear they turn to Jesus in their own repentance in the hopes of avoiding the same consequences in their own lives. Like scared sailors tossed about in the storm you created, they turn from you and turn to God. And rightfully so, sometimes they will throw you overboard to swim with the fishes on your own in order to hopefully inspire your own repentance.

Are you a believer whose life is currently tossed about by a storm caused by the consequences of your own sin? As long as there is breath in your lungs, there is hope to calm the storm. Fall on your face in repentance before the sovereign Lord of Hosts. Cling to His grace. Perhaps you are not a believer, but you see the storm that unrepentant “believers” are living through as a direct consequence of their own sin. Call out to the one true God that can calm the storm around you and within you.

If you need to speak with someone directly about what it means to experience life in Christ, please don’t hesitate to reach out for help.