Forfeiting Grace – the Message of Jonah
Recently a friend said that he doubted the validity of the Old Testament as there factual inaccuracies and he cited the story of Jonah as an example. This article examines what the book of Jonah is saying to us.
The message of Jonah is all about God’s grace. God treats people, not as we deserve but out of love, just as a mother treats her child. The key idea of the book is given in Jonah’s prayer,
“Those who cling to worthless idols forfeit the grace that could be theirs.” Jonah 2:8
It is important to know the historical setting of this book. Jonah, son of Amittai, was an established prophet whom God has used previously in the first part of the 8th century B.C. to pass on God’s word to Jeroboam II, the king of Israel (2 Kings 14:25). At that time Israel was a vassal state of the Syrians based in Damascus. The rising power of Assyria would come to weaken the Syrians and this would enable Jeroboam II to regain Israel’s independence from Syria. Jonah lived in Beth Hepher, which is just north of Nazareth, in Israel.
God had sent other prophets, such as Amos and Hosea, into Israel to warn them that their bad behaviour had been noted by God and that his judgment would be coming their way (Amos 7:8, 8:2). Their penalty would be an exile ‘beyond Damascus’ (Amos 5:27), that is to Assyria (Hosea 9:3, 10:6, 11:5). Israel felt secure at the demise of Syria and believed that the day of the Lord would come and be their salvation (Amos 5:18-20). In fact the day of the Lord was to be their destruction.
It was about the same time that God told Jonah to go to Nineveh, the capital of Assyria, that was growing in strength and warn them that God’s judgment was about to descend on them because of their godless behaviour. Jonah was horrified at this command. Nineveh was already becoming a notorious threat to the region. Jonah, like most Israelites hated the Assyrians and wanted them destroyed, not warned.
The kingdom of Assyria later became all powerful and dominated all the surrounding nations with a very firm hand. They subsequently devastated Israel, the northern half of God’s people and were to capture large parts of Judea.
Jonah’s first mistake
Jonah had been told by God to go to warn Nineveh but he responded but that was the last thing he was prepared to do!He decided that what he wanted to do was more important than what the Lord wanted of him, in spite of the fact that God had previously chosen him to be his prophet. What a foolish thing to do! But is it not just as stupid for us, God’s people today, to fail to prioritise the sharing the gospel of the Lordship of Jesus and his coming judgment with those around us today?
“Go to the great city of Nineveh and preach against it, because its wickedness has come up before me. But Jonah ran away from the Lord and headed for Tarshish.” Jonah 1:1-2
Tarshish was possibly the old name for Tartessos, a city and kingdom in what is now the Andalusian region of eastern Spain. The modern city identified with it is now called Huelva. How foolish Jonah was to think he could run away from God, ‘to flee from the LORD’ (repeated twice in Jonah 1:3) who is both omnipresent and omniscient! Yet is it that different from the behaviour of many Christians today who think more about their holidays in Spain than about sharing the gospel with others, in spite of the commission the Lord has given all Christians ‘to go into all the world and preach the gospel’ (Matthew 28:19)?
Judgment
After the ship set sail, a violent storm broke out that did not abate and the crew became desperate. They threw their cargo overboard and they ‘each cried out to their own god’ (Jonah 1:5). They wondered why this fate had befallen them, could it be that one of them had offended their god, so they cast lots to find a culprit and Jonah was chosen. The crew ‘knew he was running away from the LORD because he had already told them so’ (Jonah 1:10).
“I am a Hebrew and I worship the LORD, the God of heaven, who made the sea and the land.” Jonah 1:9
This is a strange way to worship, to run away from his LORD in disobedience!
The God of grace
Conditions on the ship became even worse and Jonah, by this time feeling guilty, suggested that their problems could be solved if he were to die. Jonah must have known that after he died he would come face to face with the living God he had refused to obey. Had he understood that God was full of grace and would still welcome him into his eternal kingdom? When matters became desperate the crew eventually decide to kill Jonah by throwing him into the tumultuous sea. It seems that Jonah was willing to die to give his life for the crew.
The raging sea then became calm. The writer records the effect on the crew. Although previously they had had their own gods, this experience led them to trust in the one true God.
“At this time the men greatly feared the LORD, and they offered a sacrifice to the LORD and made vows to him.” Jonah 1:16
They were beginning to understand the grace of God and that he wants to save people.
God, in his grace, did preserve Jonah’s life; he was swallowed by a ‘great fish’. Whenever people are saved from difficult situations it is always the work of God.
“But the LORD provided a great fish to swallow Jonah, and Jonah was inside the fish three days and three nights.” Jonah 1:17
There has been much debate about how literal this story is. How could a fish swallow a person and vomit him out after three days? How could Jonah stay alive in a fish’s stomach all that time. Such debate can miss the point. This is a forceful story about how the grace of God overcomes man sin. McClaren in his commentary writes,
“Jonah’s refusal to obey the divine command, to go to Nineveh and cry against it, is best taken, not as prosaic history, but as a poetical representation of Israel’s failure to obey the divine call of witnessing for God. In like manner, his being cast into the sea and swallowed by the great fish, is a poetic reproduction, for homiletical purposes, of Israel’s sufferings at the hands of the heathen whom it had failed to warn. The song which is put into Jonah’s mouth when in the fish’s belly, of which our text is a fragment, represents the result on the part of the nation of these hard experiences. ‘Lying vanities’ mean idols, and ‘their own mercy’ means God. The text is a brief, pregnant utterance of the great truth which had been forced home to Israel by sufferings and exile, that to turn from Jehovah to false gods was to turn from the sure source of tender care to lies and emptiness. That is but one case of the wider truth that an ungodly life is the acme of stupidity, a tragic mistake, as well as a great sin.”
Jonah begins to understand God’s grace
It is striking how often when people are in trouble, they pray. I once pickled up a hitch-hiker who had been an infantry man in the battle of Tumbledown Hill during the Falklands War. He explained that as they were descending the hill down to Port Stanley they came under intense machine gun fire. The man next to him was shot in the head and died instantly. Everyone dug in as quickly as they could. Then he added, ‘We all prayed like mad.’ I asked whether those who were atheists also prayed.
“Oh yes, we all did.”
I then asked,
“Do you still pray?”
“No, I don’t need to now!”
He obviously hadn’t understood anything of the love and grace of God. Real prayer is a reaction to the grace of God. In contrast, Jonah prayed ‘to the LORD his God’.
“In my distress I called to the LORD, and he answered me.” Jonah 2:1
What a great beginning. How often God allows our distresses to bring us back to our senses. The writer C.S.Lewis said,
“God whispers to us in our joys, speaks to us in our consciences and shouts at us in his pains. They are his megaphone to rouse a deaf world.”
It is only when people have grasped the grace of God that they will continue serving the Lord for life. Then and only then does everything gain a new perspective. Jonah continued,
“From the depths of the grave I called for help and you listened to my cry. You hurled me into the very heart of the seas, and the currents swirled about me; all your waves and breakers swept over me.” Jonah 2:2-3
Everything becomes very personal. Jonah prays to his Lord, and he knew he was listening. It had been the sailors who threw him into the sea but he now recognised that they were agents of his Lord. The waves that seemed to be drowning him were his Lord’s waves. He knew he was dying, it was ‘from the depths of the grave’ he prayed. ‘But you brought me up from the pit, O LORD my God’, the pit was the grave and it was at this time that his faith came to life again,
“When my life was ebbing away, I remembered you, LORD, and my prayer rose to you, to your holy temple.” Jonah 2:7
The temple of God represented the very presence of God. Jonah had a personal access to his Lord.
Jonah’s conclusion
Jonah sees that religion offers little to man and nothing to God. What we try to do to satisfy or please God is just vanity. In his prayer he says,
“Those who cling to worthless idols forfeit the grace that could be theirs.” Jonah 2:8
The Hebrew literally reads, ‘They that observe lying vanities’. The phrase ;lying vanities’ is frequently used of idol worship but today our ‘lying vanities’ can be a wide variety of godless concerns. Some do trust in manufactured idols that reflect their inner desires, others follow vain predictions given by religious devotees, others permit themselves to be influenced by foolish anxieties, and other chase after success in becoming popular or wealthy. In leaving the God who is the source of all real blessings, the fount of mercy, such people abandon all the eternal benefits that could have been theirs. What a vital message this is, not just for Nineveh but for us today as we are beginning to face God’s judgment in so many areas. This life is very short.
An undertaker was taking a vicar to a funeral and they drove along a road with many magnificent houses. The vicar expressed how lovely it would be to own a house like these these but the undertaker brought back a bit of reality by saying,
“Well, by the time they come to me everybody looks the same!”
Jonah comes to his senses too and concludes,
“But I, with a song of thanksgiving will sacrifice to you. What I have vowed I will make good. Salvation comes from the Lord.” Jonah 2:9
The apostle Paul was to say something similar, and surely all true Christians today can also echo this,
‘Forgetting what is behind and straining towards what is ahead, I press on towards the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenwards in Christ Jesus.” Philippians 3:13
To think like this is to rely on the grace of God. God is always in command, our role is to trust and obey.
“And the LORD commanded the fish and it vomited Jonah onto dry land.” Jonah 2:10
Jonah acts
Again God speaks to Jonah,
“Go to the great city of Nineveh and proclaim the message I give you.” Jonah 3:1
This time ‘Jonah obeyed the word of the LORD.” He travelled to Nineveh and spent three days preaching in the city. A summary of his message was,
“Forty more days and Nineveh will be overturned.” Jonah 3:4
What else he said we are not told but the effect was dramatic. People were cut to the heart, they believed that this message was from God and decided to repent and start again by living under God’s authority. Even the king put on sackcloth and he then declared,
“But let every man and beast be covered with sackcloth. Let everyone call urgently on God.. let them give up their evil ways and their violence. Who knows? God may yet relent and with compassion turn from his fierce anger so that we will not perish.” Jonah 3:7-9
This is remarkable. The king understands that God is gracious and that there is the possibility of being forgiven by him. This is the message of the whole Bible. It repeatedly talks of the gracious character of God. The Lord had told Moses about himself on Mount Sinai,
“The LORD, the LORD, the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness, maintaining love to thousands and forgiving wickedness, rebellion and sin.” Exodus 34:6-7
There is however a limit to his patience. God continued,
“Yet he does not leave the guilty unpunished.” Exodus 34:7
Could this have been the message that Jonah taught and that the king of Nineveh and his people responded to?
We then again read of the graciousness of God. The sure way to obtain a response from God is to approach him on his terms, with repentance from their wrongful behaviour.
“When God saw what they did and how they turned from their evil ways, he had compassion and did not bring upon them the destruction he had threatened.” Jonah 3:10
Unfortunately this repentance was limited and later Nineveh turned back tot heir old ways and were again rejected by God. The prophet Nahum later warned them,
“The LORD has given a command concerning you, Nineveh: ‘you will have no descendants to bear your name. I will destroy the carved images and cast idols that are in the temple of your gods. I will prepare your grave for you are vile.” Nahum 1:14
The religion of the Ninevites is contrasted with the gospel of the grace of God for the next verse reads,
“Look, there on the mountains, the feet of one who brings good news, who proclaims peace.” Nahum 1:1
Jonah does not have the Spirit of God
Jonah recognised the character of God as revealed in Scripture, and saw that God had decided to forgive the Ninevites as a result of his preaching, yet he himself could not forgive the Ninevites. It’s clear that he did not think they deserved it.
“But Jonah was greatly displeased and became angry.” Jonah 4:1
He foolishly complained at God for showing grace to this wicked people. He prayed,
“O LORD, is this not what I said when I was still at home? That is why I was so quick to flee to Tarshish. Iknew that you were a gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger and abounding in love, a God who relents from sending calamity.” Jonah 4:2
It is clear from the number of ‘I’s’ in the text that Jonah was still putting himself and not his God at the centre of his thinking. It must have been his hurt pride that led him to say,
“Now, O LORD, take away my life, for it is better for me to die that to live.” Jonah 4:3
Jonah needed to understand that ‘grace’, a characteristic of God, must also become a characteristic of God’s people. The Lord’s response was swift,
“Have you any right to be angry?” Jonah 4:4
The self-centred Jonah remained angry. He left the eastern city gates and made a limited shelter for himself and sat down waiting to see what would happen to the city. God, in his love, caused a vine to grow up over Jonah to give more protection from the sun. The lesson God wants the readers of this book to learn is that he is always a gracious God. The text says,
“Then the LORD provided a vine to grow over his head to ease his discomfort and Jonah was very happy about the vine.” Jonah 4:6
This phrase, ‘The LORD provided’, has already been used in this short book,
“But the LORD provided a great fish to swallow Jonah.” Jonah 1:17
It appears that this plant, possibly a castor oil shrub which can grow to twelve feet in height and has large leaves, grew in one day as we then read,
“But at dawn the next day God provided a worm, which chewed the vine so that it withered.” Jonah 4:8
There are some who get very bothered about the likelihood of such a plant growing and then dying within one day. To do so is to miss the point. Jonah, embittered over the loving kindness God showed to the Ninevites is very grateful to God over a small blessing for himself. This is undoubtedly the lesson that God wants all of us to learn. To teach Jonah this lesson he takes away the small benefit of the vine from Jonah and the blazing sun bore down on him.
“When the sun rose, God provided a scorching east wind, and the sun blazed on Jonah’s head so that he grew faint. He wanted to die.” Jonah 4:8
Jonah still has not grasped that God is God, that his grace must never be taken for granted and that he is much less significant than God.
“But God said to Jonah, ‘Do you have a right to be angry about the vine?’” Jonah 4:9
How truculent Jonah remains,
“‘I do,’ he said, ‘I am angry enough to die.’” Jonah 4:10
After the episode with the fish Jonah was thrilled to be still alive, but now that Nineveh lives he wants to die. How insidious pride is. God however still wants to teach Jonah and through him teach us about his grace. The Lord said,
“You have been concerned about this vine, though you did not tend or make it grow. It sprang up overnight and died overnight. But Nineveh is has more than a hundred and twenty thousand people who cannot tell their right hand from their left, and many cattle as well. Should I not be concerned about that great city?” Jonah 4:11
The lesson of this tale is clear. God wants all people to know of his grace and to have the opportunity to repent. Yet we, his people are so reluctant to make this our priority. There are so many ignorant people around who desperately need to hear the good news about the God of grace, the Lord who cares.
How easy it is to be self satisfied Christians who love our friends within our Christian communities and churches, just like the Jews in Jonah’s day were, and not to be filled with the grace of God for outsiders.
Jesus refers to Jonah
Many people, including senior Jewish teachers, followed him simply because of the miracles they saw, but repentance was not high on their agenda. Jesus said to them,
“A wicked and adulterous generation asks for a miraculous sign! But none will be given it except the sign of Jonah. For as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of a huge fish, so the Son of Man will be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth. a sign to the Ninevites, so will the Son of Man be to the this generation.” Matthew 12:39-40
In Jewish reckoning a part of a day was counted as a day. Jesus is saying that the miracle he will give them is his resurrection on the third day after his death. Yet there is another significant sign people can learn from the story of Jonah
“The men of Nineveh will stand up at the judgment with this generation and condemn it; for they repented at the preaching of Jonah, and now one greater than Jonah is here.” Matthew 12:41
Those Ninevites, who were not God’s chosen people, repented and became acceptable to God whereas many in Jesus’ time, who were formally God’s chosen people, the Jews, rejected God’s Messiah. It is a sign from God when many people in foreign lands such as Iran and Iraq are turning to the Lord Jesus whereas so many in the West are rejecting his Lordship, in spite of all the evidence.
In Lukes account of this discussion Jesus then reminds his hearers of the visit the Queen of Sheba made to Solomon when she was seeking answers for the big questions of life. He contrasts her decision with their attitude to himself,
“ . . and now one greater than Solomon is here.” Luke 11:31
This story of Jonah is so important in that it teaches that the God who made this world and all of us in it is a God of grace. Whatever wrongs we have committed against him or others can be forgiven if we repent and start again living in gratefulness to him for forgiveness and living in obedience to him to fulfil his commands.
A headmaster finished his talk at a schools annual prize-giving with these words,
“So the point of life is to discover the point of life and then to make it the point of your life.
This is what the story of Jonah reminds us of. We need to find the grace of God revealed in the Lord Jesus and then make living for him the point of our life.
BVP
October 2022
