Wrestling with God, a study of Jonah
Intro…Jonah and the “whale” What thoughts go through your mind when you hear this story?
• It is a fantastic story, one that takes faith to believe.
• Today I’m going to introduce this book/story of the bible
• I’m going to call this study of Jonah, “Wrestling with God, a study of Jonah.”
• I believe there is some of Jonah in all of us.
• We tend to run from God at different times in our lives.
• Jonah ran from God, was saved by God, and then got angry at God, a pattern many of us tend to repeat over and over…
• I believe there are lots of great life lessons in this OT book.
• The bigger picture in this story of Jonah is God’s love for all people, even those people we despise and don’t want to be around.
Text: Jonah 1:1-2 Prayer
Big Picture: When God tells us things we don’t want to hear, we need to fight the urge to run from Him.
Intro to the book (good stuff to know)
• It’s tempting to look at this story as an allegory (a symbolic representation) because it’s so crazy.
• …that this book was written about 430 B.C. to counter the exclusivism of Ezra and Nehemiah…
• In this view, Jonah represents disobedient Israel; the sea represents the Gentiles, the great fish, Babylon; and the three days in the fish’s belly, the Babylonian captivity of the Jews.
HOWEVER…according to 2 Kings 14:23-25, Jonah was not only a real person, but an accredited prophet from a town near Nazareth.
• During the reign of Adad-nirari III, there was a swing towards monotheism, which may have been a result of Jonah’s preaching.
• The plague of 765, the eclipse of the sun in 763 and a second plague in 759 were events regarded as evidence of divine judgment and could have prepared the people to receive Jonah’s message.
• The story of Jonah is one big miracle, a story of God’s calling, man’s running, God’s provision and man’s rebellion/complaining/anger.
• It’s a pattern we’ve seen repeated throughout history.
• This book was written about 760 B.C.
Jesus mentions Jonah in Matthew 12:38-41, 16:4, Luke 11:29-32
Jonah was a proud, self-centered egotist, willful, pouting, jealous, a good patriot and lover of Israel, but without proper respect for God or love for his enemies (the Assyrians in Nineveh).
• He’s the kind of guy who needed a big wake-up call from God and got one in this fantastic story.
• God asked Jonah to take the gospel to his worst enemies and his initial reaction was to flee.
The purpose of this book is primarily to teach us that God’s gracious purposes are not limited to Israel, but extended to the Gentile world.
• Jonah was prejudice towards the Ninevites (he favored his own people, the Israelites).
• He balked at God when God asked him to love these “heathen” Assyrians.
• Nineveh was a large important city in Assyria and posed a grave military threat to tiny Israel.
• Why did Jonah hate the Ninevites in Assyria?
• The book of Nahum gives us a clue. It describes the Ninevites as a ruthless and bloodthirsty people.
• The Assyrians themselves left monuments to their cruelty, long, boastful inscriptions describing their torture and slaughter of people who opposed them.
• The Israelites had reasons to fear and hate Nineveh…but God love Nineveh.
• He wanted to save the city, not destroy it. He knew it was ripe for change.
• God had a great love for the Ninevites, as he does for all people on the planet.
• The ready response of the Ninevites shows that “heathens” are capable of genuine repentance.
• Even through Jonah’s weak preaching, the people of Nineveh responded to God’s call and were spared.
• In the end, God confronts Jonah about his self-centered values and lack of compassion: 4:11…
• I know it’s a crazy story that is hard to believe…(esp. the whale part)
• but to discredit it does not do justice to the fact that Jesus held to its historicity….
• and that our God is capable of pulling something off as big as this.
So, getting back to our text: Jonah 1:1-2
• When we run from God, we are running from his greater purposes which we can’t always see.
• God always has a bigger plan than our limited view offers.
• God will do whatever it takes to get our attention.
• The bigger story in Jonah is about obeying God and loving our enemies.
• God loves every single person on this planet regardless of race.
• The story of Jonah is the story of God’s profound mercy and grace for us humans that tend to run away and disobey Him.
• This is the story of God’s love and compassion and that no one is beyond redemption.
• The gospel is for all who repent and believe.
• God is asking you and I to pray for those we don’t like, people we don’t want to talk to.
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