Introduction to Jonah
Tom Shrader begins a study of Jonah by examining the prophet's direct disobedience to God's clear command to go to Nineveh. He explores how Jonah's rebellion reveals universal human tendencies to treat God's commands as suggestions and to rationalize our way out of difficult obedience. Shrader emphasizes that God's sovereign will cannot be evaded, and that sin always takes us further than we want to go while costing more than we want to pay.
“Often I look at God's commands and I think of them more as advice rather than a command.”
— Tom Shrader
Series: Jonah
Recorded: May 07, 2015
Duration: 39 min
Themes: obedience, rebellion, calling, disobedience, running, surrender, sin, sovereignty, avoiding gods call, struggling with obedience, running from responsibility, new believer, pastor, ministry leader, feeling resistant, facing difficult calling
Scripture: Jonah 1:1-3, Matthew 12:39, Jonah 2:9, Jonah 1:4, Jonah 1:17, Jonah 2:10, Jonah 4:6-8, 2 Corinthians 5:14, Jonah 4:2, Psalm 139:7-18
Theological Themes: divine calling, prophetic ministry, biblical authority, gods sovereignty, human rebellion, scriptural inerrancy, divine will, sin nature
Full Transcript
If you have Bibles with you, open them to the book of Jonah. We're going to begin what will be a book study, and that is what I like doing a lot and enjoy so much. We're going to do the book of Jonah. I picked it because it fits in here. It's a short book, four chapters, 48 verses, written by a guy named Jonah. It raises immediately a larger question that we hit on pretty frequently: is this a fable? Is this a factual story? Is it literal? Is it an allegory?
Clarence Darrow once was trying a case and he was attacking a witness on the other side. His accusation was if you believe his testimony, you would believe that a man could be swallowed by a whale and live. So that's kind of the general suspicion of it.
Four Common Skeptical Explanations
In preparation and study, I found four common explanations that you get from those who are skeptical. Obviously we think it's a factual account of Jonah speaking and writing autobiographically. Number one, it's a dream. Jonah's just having a dream. Number two, it was a Christian version of an old Greek fable. So there's a story that was out, change the names, adapt it, make it Christian. The third one was that Jonah had fallen overboard and was rescued by a ship that had a great fish carved on the front of the ship. The fourth was that Jonah fell in the water, was washed up on shore, there was a great fish on shore who had died, and Jonah used that as home base, as a tent, was in and out. It sounds gross. I don't even like the old section at the Biltmore that much. I don't think I'd be up for that.
Regardless of all of that, we're going to treat this as what we think it is, an actual story.
Our Commitment to Scripture
I want to spend a second, because there's always people that are here for the first time or you've been around and maybe missed a time or two when we talk about it, though we talk about it all the time. Maybe the greatest act of faith that I have is not placing my faith in the Christ I see in the Bible, but in believing the Bible. To me, coming to Christ in repentance and faith and the resurrection, all that goes with it, is somewhat of a no-brainer if that book is true. You know, to be saved, here's what you need to do. But to believe... it's not as nice and tidy as we'd like and how this book came together, but we believe, I believe, that this Bible is the infallible Word of God.
I just did a men's conference over the weekend up in Williams and we had a great time. We're at Lost Canyon which is the best place in the state, really, to do an event like that. We had the most they've ever had for a men's conference. If you've been in the big clubhouse meeting room, they had the lobby filled with chairs watching on video. There were so many guys and they turned away tons of guys. So it was a great weekend. But whenever I do something like that, we're doing a coaches conference in a couple of weeks, we'll do a marriage conference, we'll be in Cannon Beach, whatever it is, I always, if it's a conference meaning three or four sessions, always start first session with getting on the same page.
We had nine different churches represented. I'm sure some of them are liberal, some of them would disagree with what I've said already, so I'll always start with, I want you to know this is where we're coming from: that the Bible is all Scripture inspired by God that's good for teaching, reproof, correction, training in righteousness. So the Bible tells us what's right, what's not right, how to get right, how to stay right. It's the owner's manual, it's where I go. If I'm in here teaching and I say something and the Bible says something else, I'm telling you right now, I'm wrong. This is infallible. That's stronger than saying it doesn't err; it's saying it cannot err. Everything that we teach and study hopefully flows from that. Now there are times where we move into opinion and all the other things, but that's where we start. The owner's manual. God wrote it, telling us how to get maximum use out of this life.
Overview of Jonah's Lessons
One of the things I like to do, introduction to a book, is the background and the 30,000 foot flyover. So let me give you five or six of the overview lessons we're going to pull from Jonah.
Number one is that this is an Old Testament picture of the resurrection. In Matthew chapter 12 verse 39, Jesus says, "An evil and adulterous generation craves for a sign, yet no sign is given but the sign of Jonah the prophet, for just as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the sea monster, so shall the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth." Whenever we read Scripture and including the Old Testament, we're looking for Jesus. We see Jesus all through the book of Jonah, but it's really a picture of the Old Testament.
Here's the second thing: it's a picture of salvation by grace. Jonah chapter 2 verse 9, very safely and succinctly Jonah says, "Salvation is from the Lord." So when we talk about salvation, it's not something that's humanly devised. I come back and again it's familiar and I guess I'm sort of apologizing for it. I don't mean to be. It's so basic that even if you have this down cold, your heart should rejoice every time you hear this.
When I come face to face with my sin and my guilt, you know this, we can dismiss it or we can accept it and despair or we can accept it and go to religion and say I'm going to fix it. Salvation is of Tom. I'm going to work hard, I'm going to clean up my act, I'm going to go to a Thursday morning deal, I'm going to start going to church, I'm going to give to it and I'm going to work it, I'm going to do all this...
stuff. No, salvation is of God. Jonah is a perfect example of this. Jonah's not looking for God, as we're going to see today—he's running away from Him, but God is the hound of heaven and if He has you in His crosshairs, He's not going to let go. I use the phrase and it threw me off when it came out, that God's stuck with you. He saved you, He'll never leave you or forsake you, He's stuck with you. You're stuck on Him. Salvation is utterly, completely of Him.
Here's the third thing and it really flows from this: God's sovereign will will come to pass. God is in control. You've heard it, but start sharing it with your friends and you've heard it a million times, therefore you're kind of accustomed to it, but for a lot of people it's new. When you say God allows or causes everything that happens, we kind of go yeah and move on because we're so familiar to it, but if you get somebody who hasn't thought about that, you can get a pushback from that.
Just let me give you six real quick examples in this book. In chapter 1 verse 4, the Lord hurled a great wind. Chapter 1 verse 17, the Lord appointed a great fish. Chapter 2 verse 10, the Lord commanded the great fish. The last chapter, chapter 4 verse 6, 7, and 8, the Lord appointed a plant, appointed a worm, and appointed a scorching east wind. God's working His sovereign plan, His unchangeable plan, His plan that nothing can usurp. And He's going to use whatever He needs. The wind, a fish, a worm, a plant. God is sovereign. God's in control.
God Will Never Abandon You
Here's the next big point: God will not abandon you. Might feel it. We ended up a little bit with this weekend with what you know trumps what you feel. There's times where you're going, really? And one more thought that I think is kind of insinuating is, God, if I were you, I'd give up on me at this point. I wouldn't hang in like this. I wouldn't take this. I wouldn't take it from my barista, let alone from me. If I was God, I wouldn't do this. But He won't leave you or forsake you.
One of those beautiful treasures that we have is the perseverance, better stated, the preservation of the saints. That I have this communion with God. We believe the Bible teaches that when I come to Christ in repentance and faith and I'm His kid, there's nothing that will sever that relationship. Not Him, not me, not my sin. There's never going to be that point.
I was on the phone with somebody the other day and they were talking about their wife and some stuff and he said, if I knew that about her, I would have never married her. You should have done your due diligence. It's on the Internet. You might want to take a look at this. I googled her and found that out. My point is, God's never going to say that to you. He's never going to say, if I'd have known that about you Tom, I would have never picked you. I would have never brought you in there.
Here's the phrase: we're as certain of heaven as the saints that are already there. And that's not—in our humanity, we kind of spring back and say, wow, should I go ahead and sin then? How can you when you understand His love and power and forgiveness for you? His love becomes the motive. His love, Paul says 2 Corinthians 5:14, His love compels us.
God is a Good God
Two more points. God is a good God. Here's a spoiler alert: I'm going to tell you how the story ends because many of you know there's Jonah and a whale, great fish, sea monster, but this is all based on a call we're going to see today that God gives Jonah to go to Nineveh. Jonah doesn't want to go, he ends up there and God moves for a giant revival and thousands and thousands are saved.
In Jonah chapter 4 verse 2, Jonah begins to pray and he says, "Please Lord, was this not what I said while I was still in my own country? Therefore, in order to forestall this, I fled to Tarshish. I know that thou are a gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger, abundant in loving-kindness, and one who relents concerning calamity." Jonah hates the people in Nineveh and he said, I don't want to go there, I know what kind of God you are, you're going to save these people. I know what you're like, and I know you're slow to anger and I know you're patient.
Now here's a warning: be careful. Slow to anger doesn't mean He'll never be angry. I was raised in an environment where we never prayed, that I can remember, in public other than a rote prayer. So if I was in eighth grade and Sister Mary Owen, if she wasn't swinging, would say, all right, you, I don't remember your name, I've had you for all year now, what is it? Tom, yeah, you, you pray. And what she wanted to hear was, Hail Mary, full of grace. And that's not a shattering criticism, I'm just saying that's how we were raised.
Well, when I got into this evangelical stuff, it's a different game. You pray very loose, and so I'm in—I hadn't been a Christian very long, and we're in a circle, we're sitting in a circle, that was a little uncomfortable, and the guy leading it is right to my left, and he said, it's time to pray. I'm going, man, Hail Mary, full of grace, I want to be ready for this.
So he said, I'll start here, so he went to his left, I'm on his right, and we'll go around the room and you close. Well, here's what I learned in this deal: you don't want to go at the end, because all the good prayers go early, all the good ones. First guy prayed for the country, the nation, those who are in harm's way, those who are fighting corruption, I mean, I'm thinking the second guy's in trouble. So he goes, and he goes, and it gets to me, and I'm ready to go, Hail Mary, full of grace, this is all I got, I'm out of everything else.
So I said, Father, I echo all that's been said, but the guy to my right, what I remember about it, other than the awkwardness, was the guy to my right prayed, Father, thank you for your infinite patience, and I thought, ooh, patient, but not infinite patient. You're not going to sit and wait, wait, wait—there's a wrath of God, we want to dismiss that.
There's a wrath of God that will be poured out, there's discipline that comes to us, but here's the big point: God is a good and gracious God. Here's the last of the big points, and that is God is a God of all the nations. As we read through the Gospels, we get that the Jews were struggling, that Jesus was the Messiah of the Jews and the Gentiles. He's a God of all the nations.
One author writes this: "One of the unfortunate things about the book of Jonah is that most people only know about the great fish. In a word association game most of us would immediately follow Jonah with whale. Actually only three of the 48 verses in the book of Jonah talk about the great fish. G. Campbell Morgan has correctly said, 'Men have been looking so hard at the great fish that they have failed to see the great God.'" So the main character of this book, like every book we study, is God. He's all over it.
Jonah's Clear Command from God
What I gave you today, knowing many of you bring Bibles but not all of you, and encouraging you now for the rest of our time before summer break to bring a scripture or an app or whatever it is you're going to use, to have it, to mark it up. I love that. We're going to look at the first three verses this morning.
Let me read them: "The word of the Lord came to Jonah the son of Amittai, saying, 'Arise, go to Nineveh the great city, cry out against it, for their wickedness has come up before me.' But Jonah rose up to flee to Tarshish from the presence of the Lord. So he went down to Joppa, found his ship which was going to Tarshish, paid the fare, went down into it to go with them to Tarshish from the presence of the Lord."
So the word of the Lord came to Jonah. This is indisputable. I think it's interesting as Jonah writes, he starts with, "Here's what God told me to do," and He gave him three things: arise, go, and cry. Arise and then specifically go to Nineveh, and you got a crummy job - your job is to prophesy, that's not a good thing, that's a tough job.
Jonah, where he played in the big leagues, would be in the Hall of Fame because he did one of the three - he did the arise part. "Arise and go to Nineveh." Jonah rose to flee to Tarshish from the presence of the Lord. Indisputable according to the text is what God wanted Him to do: Get up and go, and I'm telling you where to go. And I'm telling you what to do when you get there.
How God Speaks to Us
We don't know how the Word of the Lord came to Jonah. The Word of the Lord comes to you and me in three ways. Through the Scripture - that's why we read it. If you want to know God, you read His Word. And from it you get wisdom.
I was in a meeting the other day, and there have been a bunch of guys in this meeting talking about a guy that you know. We're going to expunge all of that, but give you the guts of it. The guy we're talking about said, "I was reading in my quiet time today," and the question was, "How did you end up in Phoenix?" He said, "I was reading in my quiet time one day, and God was talking about loving your wife as you love your own body. We were in a place where my wife was physically struggling, and I realized that if it were me, I'd get out of here. And if I love her like I love my own body, we need to move." Now, did God say move to Phoenix? No, but God gave him a greater principle, which was love your wife as you love your own body.
How does God speak to me? Through His Word, through His Spirit, through impressions. Now, you have to be very careful with this, because you start playing that "God told me" card, and that's the ultimate trump card. Nothing stops a discussion for me faster than that.
God Speaking Through People and Wisdom
The third way that God speaks to us, besides the Bible and the Holy Spirit, is through people. I've reached that point in my life where I'm in a lot of discussions for my wisdom. I was in a wisdom meeting yesterday. Right before we started today, I got a text saying, "Can you call me before your 8:30 breakfast? I need your wisdom. I have a staffing issue." I'm in that now. I give a lot of advice - I don't know about it, but God speaks through that.
You've got to be really careful. Unless the Bible says black and white, I'm really hesitant to do the "God told me" deal. So I get a call from a guy who wants my wisdom on a career move. We meet, and we go through the obligatory "How are you doing?" and all that, which is good, I like that, but it wasn't why we were there. I knew how he was doing, and he knows how I'm doing, but I don't have a problem with any of that. That's normal discussion, but we were beyond that.
We were there for a reason, and I said, "What are we here for?" He said, "God has told me" - I'm going to make up a town so it's not real - "God has told me to move to Portland. What do you think?" Well, what am I supposed to say? I have nothing. I'm empty at this point. I have no cards. The only thing - if I said anything other than "Move to Portland, call Mayflower. If you don't have the money, get U-Haul. If you don't have U-Haul, start running toward Portland. If you can't run, walk. If you can't walk, fall in the direction of Portland." I don't know. If God's called you to Portland, here's what I can tell you, and you know God's called you to Portland: it would be a sin to stay. You've got to go.
Testing God's Voice Against Scripture
But God speaks. I don't know, but you know it. You know it when God tells you. It's not the certainty of "Go to Nineveh," but in your heart it is, as you match up those impressions, and you match up the Scripture, and if He tells you something.
Larry used to tell me that this would happen to him, and I kind of thought, maybe hyperbole, but it's happened to me three or four times, where somebody has come with this logic: "You know it, God wants me happy, my spouse makes me unhappy, therefore God wants me divorced." Well, I know God doesn't want you divorced. How do I know? Well, He says "I hate divorce."
Running from Clear Commands
God provides us some biblical grounds for divorce? Yes, but they are permission, not commands. If you're in a difficult marriage, and there's been all sorts of problems, the thing that will glorify God the greatest is to hang in there, turn it around, and make it a marriage that people walking across church campus, who don't know any of that background, say, "Gosh, I hope we get to be like them." I know how that scratches the scab. I'm not trying to do that. I'm just saying, you see how we could—man, when you're hurting, you can get God to say almost anything.
The Word of the Lord comes to Jonah, and the Word of the Lord says, "Arise and go to Nineveh." Nineveh was a great city at the time, perhaps the largest city in the world. It was an evil city. They say it was about a three-day walking journey across the city, maybe 60 miles. So as you fly into Phoenix at night, and you see Mesa, Scottsdale, Paradise Valley, they all run together—that's Nineveh.
Understanding Jonah's Disobedience
Because you could read this real easy and say, "Oh, that Jonah, what an idiot, what a jerk. God told him to do it, and he didn't do it." Let me put it in our context. God comes to you and says, "Arise and go"—not to New Guinea, not to Morocco—"go to ISIS." Now you got the feel of this. This is the archenemy. "Cry out against its wickedness." God doesn't sugarcoat it. He's going, "This is a wicked place. You're My guy. Go, Charlie. Go to Nineveh."
Now, I want you to get this. He goes down to Joppa and finds a ship on the way to Tarsus. It's not that it's in his path. So let's put it in our context. It would be like God says, "Arise and go to San Diego," and he heads to Albuquerque. It's not like he's heading in the same direction, and Tarsus is on the way and I'll hang out there on the way to Nineveh. No, he hears what God wants him to do, and he goes the other way.
Treating Commands as Advice
I wrote this down, and maybe it's just true of me, but often I look at God's commands and I think of them more as advice rather than a command. God says, "Do this," and I'll go, "Yeah, good input. What do you think? And you." And I'll get advice from a bunch of people. This is clear. Jonah's problem is not lack of knowledge. Jonah's telling you, "I got the message. Arise and go to Nineveh. Got it. That's where You want me. That's what You have for me."
But Jonah says, "It's a wicked city." And Jonah, I don't give him this—he doesn't cover this up. Jonah said, "I hate these people. I don't want to go. I don't want to go. I know what kind of God You are." He doesn't say, "I'm afraid they're going to kill me," though that could well be in there. He said, "I'm afraid You're going to save them." That's it. "I don't like them." Think of your Thanksgiving table. You know what I mean? He hates these people. He can't stand these people.
The Jonah in All of Us
My key phrase, that we'll come back to again and again through the six or eight weeks, is that there's a little bit of Jonah in all of us. My problem is that my problem is, I don't identify so much with some of these sweet characters—I identify with Jonah. And you and I have the same command as Jonah: go and make disciples. And the "go"—thus we labor it again—the emphasis is not on "go," but it's on "make disciples." That as you're going, you are an ambassador for Christ.
To go and make disciples, you don't need a passport, a visa, and shots. You can do it today at Fry's. You can do it at the gym. And it may be people you can't even stand, or make it even worse—people you don't even care about. It's not even like you don't want to see them in heaven. You don't want them in the body of Christ.
And there are often people, and I add to this list, that are the most antagonistic. The ones that are in your grill, in your face all the time. I used to work with a guy, and every once in a while, he'd walk by my cube, and he'd say, "Schrader, come in here." And I'd go in, and he would say—I remember one night specifically—"I watched a thing on PBS last night." I said, "Hey man, I don't even donate to them. I can't control the material on there." He said, "No, no, no, it's on the Holocaust." I said, "Okay." He said, "Tell me this, why would your God do that?" That's a big question. I said, "I don't know. And I can't really answer it. And I can give you answers." And it was a series of that.
God's Grace to the Antagonistic
And one day, he walks by, I said, "Schrader, come in here." I said, "Hey, I watched PBS. There was no Holocaust on last night at all. I don't know what to do." He said, "You know what I did over the weekend?" And I said, "Uh-uh." He said, "I became a Christian." And I found myself going, "Really? Seriously? I can't imagine that." And I thought, "God's a gracious God." But I had the same thing in my own life.
I mean, when I started telling people, when I told my brother that I became a Christian, he just laughed. He said, "Really? That's the best thing you've got, huh? I can't imagine that." And you know what he said? "Remember the night you got so drunk that the pizza guy picked you up and brought you home?" I said, "Well, I remember waking up smelling like pepperoni, but I don't remember the details of it." Well, I don't know. All I know is now it's go and live this.
Rationalizing Disobedience
I don't know this for sure, which is always scary. But human nature tells me Jonah probably did something like this: "Arise, go to Nineveh." He goes down and there is a ship there that's going to Tarshish. Now, let me fill in the blanks here. It's not like going to Sky Harbor saying "I want to go to San Diego" and there's a flight every hour. There might be two ships a year that would go to Tarshish.
So Jonah's going in his mind, "Wow, here's a ship that's not going to Nineveh, it's going to Tarshish. God, You wouldn't have put this boat here if You didn't want me to take this boat and look—I got the money, I got the money, and You put the boat here and You put this desire in my heart. You must want me to go to Tarshish." No, He wants you to go to Nineveh.
stutter. He isn't rethinking it. But isn't that how? Have you ever done that? Some version of that? God, You wouldn't put this desire in my heart if You didn't want me to do it. No, He told you, you save yourself for your wife or your husband. And I got that she looks good or he looks good or whatever. I don't know. He put the desire in your heart to have an intimate, personal relationship, a sexual relationship, but He put, we hate this word, boundaries around it, and I don't go out of those boundaries.
Jonah's Classic Mistakes
And Jonah makes classic mistakes. Two of them, really. Look at verse 3. Jonah rose to flee to Tarshish from the presence of the Lord. He thought he could hide from God. Psalm 139, verses 7-18, is just a series of if you're before me, you're behind me, beside me, if I go up, you're down, wherever I go, I cannot evade you. You can't run from the presence of God. He's all-knowing.
Yesterday morning, I've showered, I'm getting dressed, and I'm talking to God. I'd call it prayer, not maybe in the typical sense, but I'm communicating to God. And all of a sudden, I started laughing. Because I realized I was working Him. I'm working Him like I'm trying to sell Him a 93 Malibu. I mean, I'm grinding Him, and I'm coming over here, and I just started laughing. I said, you know, I'm sorry. But I am. I'm like, I'm giving Him like three-quarter truth about how I feel. And that's the beauty about Him, is you can tell Him anything because you're not informing Him, you're just acknowledging it. I can't fool Him with a fooling machine. There's no way to come around and get at it. I can't. You can't run from the presence of God. And you can't evade His discipline.
Suffering Obediently vs. Prospering Disobediently
I'm driving along one day, the old cassette tape days, listening to a tape, and this guy says something. Wow, I've got to write this down. So I pull over, and you know on cassette, you've got to wind, rewind. So I get it. I write it down. I call Larry. Larry Wright. And I said, Larry, listen to this. I'm listening to the tape today, and this guy said, I would rather suffer obediently than prosper disobediently.
So let's set that up. That doesn't make sense. I'd rather suffer than prosper? The kind of clarifying word is I'd rather suffer obediently than prosper disobediently. Why? Because I know my obedient suffering is as temporary as my disobedient prospering. That's brilliant. Larry said, oh my gosh, that's good. Let me write that down. So he writes it down, and he said, who said that? And I said, you did. It's on tape. He said, man, that's good. That's really good. I forgot all that.
But there's that context. That can be an overarching principle for life. I'd rather suffer than prosper. That makes no sense. Why? Well, because one's disobedient and one's obedient. So here's what I'm really saying. I'd rather be obedient than disobedient because both are temporary. I'm in the land of the dying going to the land of the living. And I can't hide from God, and I can't escape His discipline.
Jonah's Real Problem
Jonah's problem, and let's make sure we get this, Jonah's problem is not lack of knowledge. He just didn't want to go. Somebody said this about sin, and we'll close with it. If I do things my way, I never get where I want to go, and I always pay the price. If I do things God's way, I always get where I want to go, and He paid the price.
The Consequences of Sin
And then the results. Those of you that have been in this know this. Sin always takes me further than I want to go and keeps me longer than I want to stay and costs me more than I want to pay. That's the thing. I hear that all the time. And I go, I didn't intend for this to happen.
It's when you're trying to figure out, you take the athlete and say, oh, he's got $40 million. How can he do this? Well, because sin always takes me further than I want to go. And once I get there, especially if I don't get caught, I'm always going to stay a little longer than I want to stay because it must be one of those things that God's advising, not commanding, because if He wanted to get me, He ought to get me at this point, and then it costs me.
We deal with guys all the time who've lost everything that matters. Maybe not all the dough. Maybe you still end up with a few cars and a boat. Your season tickets. Do those things. But the family's gone and the kids aren't talking to you and the parents that you loved don't want to see you anymore. Why? Because of some stupid, sinful thing you did that always takes you further and keeps you longer and costs you more.
Don't Judge Jonah Too Harshly
Jonah's a really good study. But resist the temptation to go, that dumb Jonah because there's a little bit of Jonah in every one of us.