PURSUING THOSE WHO NEED TO HEAR

FEBRUARY 24, 2013 

1.     ALL PEOPLE HAVE AN URGENT NEED (JONAH 3:1-4)

1 Now the word of the LORD came to Jonah the second time, saying, 2 "Arise, go to Nineveh the great city and proclaim to it the proclamation which I am going to tell you." 3 So Jonah arose and went to Nineveh according to the word of the LORD. Now Nineveh was an exceedingly great city, a three days' walk. 4 Then Jonah began to go through the city one day's walk; and he cried out and said, "Yet forty days and Nineveh will be overthrown."

NASB 

Verse 1:

·         God is the God of the second chance.

·         This is not something unusual that God did just in Jonah's case.

·         The prodigal son came home, and when he arrived, he didn't get a beating; he got a    banquet.

Verse 2:

·         God still intended for Jonah to go to Nineveh and warn the people of God's impending wrath for their sin.

·         Jonah was not to proclaim Jonah's message; but was to deliver God's message to the Ninevites.

Verse3:

·         Accepting his second chance, Jonah "obeyed the Word of the Lord."

·         The "three days" most likely refers to the time that it took to walk around the city.

·         A man that spent three days and three nights in a fish simply cannot come out looking like he did when he went in!

Verse 4:

·         Jonah probably gave that message with relish, for we can see that he did not like the Ninevites!

·         Note that Jonah was not held responsible by God for the people's response to God's message.

·         Jonah was only responsible for obediently delivering God's message. 

See here the nature of repentance; it is the change of our mind and way, and a return to our work and duty. Also, the benefit of affliction; it brings those back to their place who had deserted it. See the power of Divine grace, for affliction of itself would rather drive men from God, than draw them to him.

Matthew Henry’s Concise Commentary

2.     GOD ACTS WITH SOVEREIGN MERCY (JONAH 3:5, 10)

5 Then the people of Nineveh believed in God; and they called a fast and put on sackcloth from the greatest to the least of them.

NASB

 

·         All God has ever asked any person, any sinner, to do is simply to believe Him.

·         Jonah does not say how they were persuaded; but probably because of the conviction of the Holy Spirit that they were sinners, that they had sinned against the Lord God: the creator of the universe, that they had displeased God, and that if they did not repent, He would destroy them that they believed that the God of Whom Jonah spoke and represented had all power in Heaven and earth.

·         This is one of the special lessons in this book - the willingness of heathen people to listen and respond to the Word of God.

·         This is contrasted, in Jonah's day with the stubbornness and callousness of Israel.

·         This is seen also in the immediate obedience of the people of Nineveh in contrast to the initial disobedience of Jonah himself. 

To “believe in God” expresses more heart-belief, than to “believe God” in itself need convey. To believe God is to believe what God says, to be true; “to believe in” or “on God” expresses not belief only, but that belief resting in God, trusting itself and all its concerns with Him. It combines hope and trust with faith, and love too, since, without love, there cannot be trust. They believed then the preaching of Jonah, and that He, in Whose Name Jonah spake, had all power in heaven and earth. But they believed further in His unknown mercies; they cast themselves upon the goodness of the hitherto “unknown God.” Yet they believed in Him, as the Supreme God,

Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible

*****

10 When God saw their deeds, that they turned from their wicked way, then God relented concerning the calamity which He had declared He would bring upon them. And He did not do it.

NASB 

·         Here is another great lesson from the Book of Jonah - The Word of the Lord went out to the Ninevites, it was believed by them, even though there was no extensive campaign of religious instruction and revival to prepare them for it.

·         Because the Ninevites repented, God spared them.

·         His own people ignored prophet after prophet that God had sent them, and because of their lack of repentance and continued sin, God delivered judgment upon them and they were taken into captivity - Israel by the Assyrians and Judah by the Babylonians. 

God’s sparing Nineveh, when in the jaws of destruction, on the first dawn of repentance encourages the timid penitent, and shows beforehand that Israel’s doom, soon after accomplished, is to be ascribed, not to unwillingness to forgive on God’s part, but to their own obstinate impenitence.

Jefferson, Faussett and Brown Commentary

3.     SALVATION ISN’T JUST ABOUT US (JONAH 4:1-4)

·         This fourth chapter is like an addendum to the Book of Jonah, because at the end of Chapter 3 the mission is accomplished.

·         The entire city turned to God and it would seem that it ought to end right there.

·         It was not the Lord's purpose to destroy Nineveh; His purpose was to save it.

·         God had more trouble with a backsliding prophet by the name of Jonah than He had with an entire city of brutal, cruel, pagan sinners.

·         God is now going to have to deal with a backsliding prophet who has a pretty strong will and who hates Ninevites. 

4:1 But it greatly displeased Jonah, and he became angry. 2 And he prayed to the LORD and said, "Please LORD, was not this what I said while I was still in my own country? Therefore, in order to forestall this I fled to Tarshish, for I knew that Thou art a gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger and abundant in lovingkindness, and one who relents concerning calamity. 3 "Therefore now, O LORD, please take my life from me, for death is better to me than life." 4 And the LORD said, "Do you have good reason to be angry?"

NASB 

Verse 1:

·         It didn't displease Jonah a little bit; it displeased him exceedingly.

·         He was not angry just a little bit; he was very angry.

Verse 2:

·         This expresses submissiveness, yet, he does not hesitate to tell God that this was the cause of his first rebellion.

·         It is very clear that Jonah did know God and that he knew Him very well.

·         Jonah objected to God in applying His grace and mercy to others outside his own nation.

Verse 3:

·         As did Moses and Elijah, Jonah prayed the Lord to take his life! 

Numbers 11:14-15

 14 "I alone am not able to carry all this people, because it is too burdensome for me. 15 So if Thou art going to deal thus with me, please kill me at once, if I have found favor in Thy sight, and do not let me see my wretchedness."

NASB 

1 Kings 19:3-4

 4 But he himself went a day's journey into the wilderness, and came and sat down under a juniper tree; and he requested for himself that he might die, and said, "It is enough; now, O LORD, take my life, for I am not better than my fathers."

NASB 

·         Jonah has really been through the mill.

·         This man is now overwrought, over-stimulated.

·         He is exhausted, absolutely drained, and he wants to die.

Verse 4:

·         Another translation of this is... "Is doing good displeasing to you?"

·         Do you have to love people before you can bring the Word of God to them?

·         Do you have to love a people before you can go as a missionary to them? 

4.     DO WE CARE AS GOD CARES? (JONAH 4:5-11)

5 Then Jonah went out from the city and sat east of it. There he made a shelter for himself and sat under it in the shade until he could see what would happen in the city. 6 So the LORD God appointed a plant and it grew up over Jonah to be a shade over his head to deliver him from his discomfort. And Jonah was extremely happy about the plant. 7 But God appointed a worm when dawn came the next day, and it attacked the plant and it withered. 8 And it came about when the sun came up that God appointed a scorching east wind, and the sun beat down on Jonah's head so that he became faint and begged with all his soul to die, saying, "Death is better to me than life."

9 Then God said to Jonah, "Do you have good reason to be angry about the plant?" And he said, "I have good reason to be angry, even to death." 10 Then the LORD said, "You had compassion on the plant for which you did not work, and which you did not cause to grow, which came up overnight and perished overnight. 11 "And should I not have compassion on Nineveh, the great city in which there are more than 120,000 persons who do not know the difference between their right and left hand, as well as many animals?"

NASB 

Verse 6:

·         As Jonah had been graciously delivered from a watery grave by the Lord, so once more he finds that God is taking care of him.

·         In fact, he was happier about the vine than he was about the fact that God had spared an entire city from destruction.

·         And then perhaps Jonah went on to think (as people do) that this favor of God showed that God meant to grant him what he heart was set upon, the destruction of the Ninevites.

Verse 7:

·         Jonah enjoyed the plant for only one day.

Verse 8:

·         Possibly Jonah's hopes had been revived by the plant, and possibly those hopes had perished with it.

·         Jonah wished to die because of his discomfort was made worse by the knowledge that God was indeed going to spare the Ninevites.

Verse 9:

·         There is no warning of punishment, just a concern for Jonah's sense of spiritual values.

·         He does not forsake Jonah as a rebellious servant, but treats him as one needing help in understanding God's will for him.

Verse 10:

·         He claimed ownership of things that really belonged to God.

·         When God took the vine, Jonah still had his shelter; but without the vine the shelter no longer met Jonah's expectations.

·         We get used to having God's blessing and then take them for granted until we lose them.

Verse 11:

·         God is now beginning to compare Jonah's concern for the lost plant with God's concern for the lost souls of the people of Nineveh.

·         Jonah was selfishly concerned about a vine that gave him shade. God was concerned about the eternal destiny of a whole city of people. 

God waives for the time the fact of the repentance of Nineveh, and speaks of those on whom man must have pity, those who never had any share in its guilt, the 120,000 children of Nineveh, “I who, in the weakness of infancy, knew not which hand, “the right” or “the left,” is the stronger and fitter for every use.”

Albert Barnes’ notes on the Bible