Last week as we ended the book of 2 Kings we introduced prophets as representatives of Israel that were meant to call the nation of Israel to repentance due to unfaithfulness to God’s Law.

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Prophets >> Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Daniel
• 12

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Prophets >> Hosea, Joel, Amos, Obadiah, Jonah, Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Haggai, Zechariah, & Malachi.
• Old Testament prophets, as we have seen, spoke

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messages to

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people at

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times. The prophetic books record their message or a number of their messages.
• Today, we are going to begin with the book of Jonah, which is not a book that contains a message from a prophet, but is unique in that it is a story about a prophet.
• The story of Jonah needs to

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us. Jonah is a microcosm of Israel at this time. Whereas most of the prophets are obedient to call Israel to faithfulness, Jonah is disobedient to embrace the faithfulness and compassion of God.

// More than likely, we are not as familiar with the true story of Jonah as we think we are.
// For us, as we study Jonah today, the question that faces us is this: Do we really believe God wants others to experience the same compassion He has shown us?

Who was Jonah?

• Jonah is identified in 2 Kings 14 as a prophet under Jeroboam II.
• At some point after this time, God called Jonah in Jonah 1:1-3, “Now the word of the LORD came to Jonah the son of Amittai, saying, 2 “Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and call out against it, for their evil has come up before me.” 3 But Jonah rose to flee to Tarshish.”
• Remember, the prophets of God were called to deliver a specific message to a specific people in a specific place at a specific time. Why would Jonah run from the Lord? Why does he not want to deliver this message? This should make us ask another question that is pertinent, “Who were the Ninevites?”
• Who were the Ninevites?

// In Jonah’s day, Nineveh was an important junction for commercial routes crossing the Tigris on the great highway between the Mediterranean Sea and the Indian Ocean, thus uniting the East and the West, it received

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from many sources, so that it became one of the greatest of all the region’s ancient cities.
// The Ninevites were known as some of the

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people in the ancient world. Their own history records them boasting about what they would do to the people of another city when they conquered it. When they conquered a city, not only would they rape & murder women & young girls, but they would impale & behead many people & then put them all outside of the conquered city gate as a way of saying, “This is what happens to all those dare oppose Assyria.”
// Now, about a century after Jonah entered the city, the Assyrians came & defeated the northern kingdom of Israel. But in Jonah’s time, God had another purpose. God wanted to display His glory through their repentance & salvation. Now you understand why Jonah had such a hard time with God’s command to “go.”

The Upside Down of Jonah

• The book of Jonah seems like it was written upside down. You have all of these characters acting & responding

than how you think they should.
• Jonah’s journey to Nineveh >> Nineveh was about 500 miles northeast of Israel. But Jonah chooses to get on a boat to go about 2000 miles west (the opposite direction) to a place called Tarshish (modern day Spain).
• In His sovereignty, God will not be refused >> Jonah tried to

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but God displays His power in incredible ways to get Jonah’s attention.

Jonah’s Message

• This time Jonah obeys, but to be honest, he still seems to only be

obeying God.
• Nineveh is

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. It would take three days to walk through the entire city (4:3), but Jonah only goes 1 day in & says “Yet forty days, & Nineveh shall be overthrown” (3:4).
• What’s missing?!? What they have done, who is going to overthrow them, how they should respond, & to whom they should respond! Is this prophetic sabotage?
• In a strange turnabout, God actually makes Jonah’s message come

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. Jonah said they would be “overthrown” which could mean “destroyed,” but could also mean “transformed” or “changed.” That’s actually what happened as everyone — from the king to the animals — took the posture of

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.

Jonah’s Response

• Jonah’s response is less than

>> Jonah 4:1-2 >> Jonah actually takes the character of God from Exodus 34:6 & throws it back in God’s face.
• In the last part of chapter 4, God displays His sovereignty again to call out Jonah’s sinful attitude. So far, He has used a storm & a fish. Now He will use a tree & a worm.
• Essentially, God causes the tree to grow & Jonah is happy. Then God causes a worm to eat the roots of the tree so it wilts & Jonah is angry. The book ends with God saying, “Aren’t people more important than plants? Shouldn’t I be compassionate on Nineveh?”

Philemon 1:6 >> Everytime you share you faith, you learn more about what God has done for you.

• The book of Jonah confronts this reality in us by asking “Are you really okay with God loving His

? Why don’t you love your enemies like Jesus told you to?”
• Jonah found a boat to run from the calling. There is always a boat. You have an enemy that is completely willing to provide a

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for you to be disobedient to God. You have a world that always has somewhere else for you to be, some other activity for you to use your talents, spend your energy, and consume your family’s bandwidth.
• Stop scanning the horizon for an

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when God has already spoken. The way forward is not behind you. Obedience may be costly—but revival is on the other side.
• Discern the calling, beware of the motivation to run, but follow through. The people of Nineveh are waiting for you.