Jonah

Jonah: The Brooding Prophet

August 9, 2021 by David Noland Leave a Comment

Jonah went out of the city and sat to the east of the city and made a booth for himself there. He sat under it in the shade, till he should see what would become of the city.

Now the LORD God appointed a plant and made it come up over Jonah, that it might be a shade over his head, to save him from his discomfort. So Jonah was exceedingly glad because of the plant. But when dawn came up the next day, God appointed a worm that attacked the plant, so that it withered.

When the sun rose, God appointed a scorching east wind, and the sun beat down on the head of Jonah so that he was faint. And he asked that he might die and said, “It is better for me to die than to live.”

But God said to Jonah, “Do you do well to be angry for the plant?” And he said, “Yes, I do well to be angry, angry enough to die.”

And the LORD said, “You pity the plant, for which you did not labor, nor did you make it grow, which came into being in a night and perished in a night. And should not I pity Nineveh, that great city, in which there are more than 120,000 persons who do not know their right hand from their left, and also much cattle?”
Jonah 4:5-11

Poor, pitiful Jonah. So angry with God for showing mercy to Nineveh that he goes east of the city (further away from Israel) and builds a temporary home there, perhaps still hoping to see Nineveh burn. The fact that the Scripture uses the term “suka” for “booth” suggests that this was also in keeping with the Jewish Festival of Booths or Sukkot, which occurs in late September as summer transitions into autumn. It is the first festival after the Jewish New Year of Yom Kippur, which is why it is also referred to the Feast of the First Days. As part of this festival, Jewish families are instructed to construct a temporary dwelling and to live in it for 3 days, as a reminder of the temporary dwellings of the Israelites as they sojourned through the wilderness of Sin towards Mt. Sinai.

As this is likely some of the hottest days of the year (the dog days of summer), God miraculously provides a shade tree to help keep Jonah comfortable – a tree that sprouts up overnight and Jonah was “exceedingly glad”. Overjoyed at the mercy that God had provided for him. Excited for the grace that God had extended to him in the midst of the glaring heat. So Jonah got comfortable. He relaxed beneath the shade of that tree. Until the dawn of the new day.

With the new day brought a different challenge as the tree withered away and Jonah was again angry and filled with self-pity. A tree that was miraculously provided for a night, that he did nothing to cause to come into being yet casually enjoyed the benefits of its presence, was taken away and he was left wanting. Interestingly, Jonah was not angry at God, but he was angry at the tree. The Father, knowing the motivations of the heart, challenged Jonah with a rhetorical question: “Are you right to be angry at the tree? A tree that you did nothing to cause to grow. A tree that just sprang up overnight, and because the benefits of that tree didn’t last more than a day you want to die?”

Are we not the same way? We expect the easy, casual benefits of grace for ourselves while we scornfully look down upon those whom God also desires to know His grace. We bask in the shade and comfort of His mercy, yet we sit in judgment upon the very ones that God calls us to go to and serve with an open heart. We take the benefits of His grace and mercy for granted and then when the Father brings discipline in an effort to get our attention, we withdraw into an emotional malaise and become paralyzed by our disillusionment.

The grace and mercy of God are not yours for your own enjoyment and selfish benefit. They are extended to you so that you might extend further to those around you. And when we hoard His gift to ourselves, blinded by our own warped sense of justice and self-righteousness, we quench the Holy Spirit of God and choke out the benefits of His grace in our lives. The tree of mercy withers in the baking sun of our discontent and self-righteousness.

If God chooses to have mercy on a repentant city of 120,000 people who are ignorant of the one true God, but demonstrate a heart seeking after Him, what right do we have to withhold mercy ourselves? The mercy of God is His alone to give. The grace of God is His alone to extend. He is the Sovereign Lord of the Universe and if He chooses to extend grace to our enemies who come forth in repentance, who are we to stand in His way.

I am reminded of the story of Corrie ten Boom, celebrated survivor of the Nazi concentration camps for hiding Jews during the Nazi occupation of Holland in World War II. She endured unimaginable horrors and lost all of her family, including her beloved sister Betsy in those camps, which she chronicled in her book “The Hiding Place”. Upon her release, she spent the remainder of her life telling the world “There is no pit so deep that God’s love isn’t deeper still.” After one speaking engagement she was approached by a man whom she recognized as one of the cruelest of the guards at the camp she and Betsy were interred at. He confessed his sin to her and begged her for her forgiveness. It took everything in her to not walk away in anger, disgust, and self-righteousness, but she had just spent the previous hour speaking on the power of forgiveness and to walk away would undo everything she had stood for. She took the guard’s hand and said “I forgive you…brother.”

Jesus said we are to “love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven. For He makes His sun rise on the evil and on the good and sends rain on the just and the unjust.” (Matthew 5:44, 45). Do not take His grace and mercy for granted. Extend that same grace and mercy to those around you. No, they don’t deserve it, but neither did you. Otherwise, it wouldn’t be grace. This is the ultimate lesson of Jonah and it is the ultimate lesson that we all must take to heart.

Jonah: Unrepentant Anger

August 2, 2021 by David Noland Leave a Comment

But it displeased Jonah exceedingly, and he was angry. And he prayed to the LORD and said, “O LORD, is not this what I said when I was yet in my country? That is why I made haste to flee to Tarshish; for I knew that you are a gracious God and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love, and relenting from disaster. Therefore now, O LORD, please take my life from me, for it is better for me to die than to live.”
And the LORD said, “Do you do well to be angry?”
Jonah 4:1-4

Anger. There doesn’t seem to be any shortage of anger in the world today. In fact, it seems that everywhere you turn in social media, news, and even the occasional televangelist we are inundated with messages of unrelenting anger. Be it anger over political differences, anger over social constructs and perceived injustices – either real or imagined, anger over the past and its impact on the present, anger over differences in religion and theology.

Even within the church we are not immune to expressions of anger and discontent between our own perceptions of how things ought to be within the body of Christ as contrasted to the reality of how things are. Believers become angry with one another over doctrinal differences or some perceived slight because a pastor or prominent member of the congregation didn’t shake their hand or greet them “properly”. Anger over gossip or refusal to forgive “minor” indescretions. Anger over a refusal to make allowances for spiritual compromises.

Unchecked anger is a cancer and it can spread quickly if allowed to remain out of control. I’ve often said that anger is nothing more than an emotional response to unmet expectations. The question then becomes a matter of managing our expectations. If our expectations are reasonable and righteous, in accordance with God’s Word, then our anger can indeed be righteous – so long as we do not allow it to control us to the point of giving opportunity for sin. If our expectations are not reasonable or in accordance with God’s word, then it is our responsibility to adjust our expectations to align with His word and our attitudes to align with a humble heart of repentance.

Exceeding Displeasure

“But it displeased Jonah exceedingly, and he was angry.” (Jonah 4:1) Anger and displeasure are two different emotions. We can dislike a result or circumstance without becoming angry about it. However, the word “displeased” used in this verse is not what you might think. The Hebrew word used here is very often translated to equate with evil and wickedness – selfish desires of the heart. In fact, the primary Hebrew definition for this word is to spoil, by breaking into pieces.

Remember, the Kingdom of Israel has been harassed by the Assyrians for decades and Jonah, in his nationalistic fervor was not keen on seeing God have mercy on the tormentors of his people. In his own selfishness, Jonah wanted to see the Ninevites of the Assyrian Empire destroyed. And honestly, who in their own mind would blame him? Following the events of 9/11, our entire country was in an angry uproar over the Muslim perpetrators of the attack on the World Trade Center. This fear and anger spread quickly and eventually gave rise to xenophobic attacks on Middle Eastern Americans, regardless of their religious or non-religious backgrounds. Eventually conspiracy theorists arose and tried to deflect these attacks on to our own government for “allowing” the attacks to occur in the first place.

Even in my own youth, I felt a sense of anger towards the perpetrators of these attacks and the ideology of Islam that cries out “Death to the infidels!” and “Death to America!”. But I was very quickly reminded of God’s desire to see these same people repent of their sin. A couple of days later at a prayer service, I was called upon to pray for a team of German missionaries that were being held hostage in Afghanistan. And it struck me. This group of a dozen believers voluntarily went into hostile territory to declare the gospel of Jesus and call the people to repentance, knowing full well that they could lose their lives for the sake of the Kingdom.

Yes, I was angry at the ones who perpetrated the attack on our country. Yes, my anger extended to the ideology that fueled that attack. But my heart was broken for the people who were held captive to this ideology and blind to the reality of the gospel that sets men and women free from the bondage of sin and degradation. And I was ashamed of my own anger that gave way to momentary hatred in the midst of fear.

Expectations Demolished

“O Lord, is not this what I said when I was yet in my country? That is why I made haste to flee to Tarshish; for I knew you are a gracious God and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love, and relenting from disaster.” (Jonah 4:2) Jonah knew. He expected God to be merciful in the face of repentance. Which is why he ran the opposite direction to begin with. He didn’t want to see the people repent because he knew that if they heard the full message from God, they would repent and God would have mercy on them. He made the assumption that if ran the other way, the Ninevites would not get the message and therefore not repent, and consequently be destroyed as God commanded.

This is why I believe the prophet Jonah edited the message of God to remove any hint of hope. He didn’t want the Ninevites to have any hope of mercy because he wanted God’s judgment to rain down. But the Father had other plans. The message of impending doom for a superstitious and pagan people was taken as an omen, but the king inferred a sense of hope because “Who knows?! Maybe God will turn and relent and turn from his fierce anger, so that we may not perish!” (Jonah 3:9)

But Jonah knew. And we, who have been forgiven so much in our own lives, know as well. We know the mercy that our Father has bestowed upon us for our repentance. And we know that is why we are commanded to “Go and make disciples of all nations.” (Matthew 28:19) Yet, how many of us actually go? How many of us actually try to go and make disciples? Has God spoken to you about reaching out to your annoying neighbor with the gospel? Has God spoken to you about reaching out to that irritating co-worker about the grace of our Father? Has God spoken to you about going to another city, state, or even country – including a country that is hostile to your faith – to present the message of repentance to a lost and dying generation? If so, and you haven’t been obedience, I ask you – why are you letting your fear and anger quench the spirit of God?

Emotional Defenses

“And the Lord said ‘Do you do well to be angry?'” (Jonah 4:4) I imagine this verse, within its proper context, can probably be read as a rhetorical question. God already knew why Jonah was angry, but rather He wanted to Jonah to sit and think about why he was angry. To think about the implications of his own words. To paraphrase, “If you knew that I would be merciful to those who would repent, why are you so angry about it?”

If a new believer demonstrates genuine repentance, why are there some people who still want them to pay for their sin with their shame? I’ve been in congregations in my lifetime where someone would actually come to faith in Christ and then I would hear whispers of judgment and doubt from the same pew. If there is much rejoicing in heaven over one sinner who repents, ought there not be as much rejoicing from our pews within our sanctuaries?

Why do we think that when we go to our activist events, waving pictures of aborted babies with anger in eyes and hearts, or scream from the steps of our local government buildings over injustice crying for judgment, that anyone should take those words and expect anyone to repent? Anger and fear do not inspire repentance. Only love and the Spirit of God can do that.

Judgment begets defensive measures. The Ninevites assumed a defensive posture with their repentance. Unfortunately for them, their repentance was short lived. Eventually their emotional repentance gave way to a return to their sin of violence and they ended up conquering Israel and carrying off thousands into exile. And eventually, judgment came in the form of the Babylonian Empire under Nebuchadnezzar who again carried off the Israelite captives to Babylon.

The heart of the Father is a heart that seeks repentance in His children and obedience in the heart of His children. We can be obedient with a begrudged heart and it will not please the Father. We can give money in our tithe with bitterness towards a brother, but God will not honor that offering. The Father longs to see all of His creation bow to Him in adoration and worship with a heart that mirrors His for the nations. We must love our neighbor enough to tell them the truth of the gospel. We must love our colleagues enough to speak the truth of His grace. We must love the nations enough to be willing to go where the Father leads us, even if it’s right into the lion’s mouth.

And if they do indeed repent, we must have a heart that is willing to walk with them, teach them, love them, and grow them so that they might celebrate with us at the throne of grace.

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.