through the book of Jonah with our campers and staff. Each day, we saw more of the grace of God in the life of a rebel heart. He accomplished His mission through an unwilling prophet.
our hearts back towards Him by asking a few questions of the first 3 verses of the book of Jonah:
1.
What is the Rescue Mission of God?
a.
What is God’s
plan for this
city of Nineveh?
2.
Who is this Rebel Heart?
a.
Who is this Jonah?
3.
How is a heart Re-tuned?
a.
If Jonah’s heart was out of tune with God’s
heart – what is God’s method of tuning us back to harmony with His will?
The Rescue Mission of God
Nineveh was a major
city in the Assyrian Empire. Historically, this made Nineveh one of the
quintessential enemies of Israel. Years later, Assyria would conquer Israel.
Even in Jonah’s time, there was a tangible political and social tension between
the two cultures. It was an enormous city – we are told it took 3 days to walk
through the city limits (Jonah 3:3). Nineveh was also a miserable place.
Imagine the worst of the Red Light District of Amsterdam or Bourbon Street on a
particularly fat Tuesday (Josh Martin – Seeing the Heart of God in the Book of Jonah).
If Nineveh would not respond to Jonah’s warning of impending judgment, they would be destroyed because of their sin. In the very last verse
of the book, we see God’s intention: “And
should I not pity Nineveh, that great city, in which there are more than
120,000 persons who do not know their right hand from their left…?” The
expression “knowing your right hand from your left” is still used today,
perhaps in variations (e.g. “he doesn’t know his head from a hole in the ground.”) The
meaning is clear – this person is ignorant, misled, and hopeless. This was an
accurate assessment of the state of Nineveh.
Yet God desired to show them
mercy. This was His divine imperative, His mission. God reveals himself in the
book of Jonah as having compassion on the ignorant, misled, and hopeless – even
the most wicked enemy and most despised foreign culture. We must see that God
initiated through Jonah a plan to love an unlovable people. That is still His
mission to this day.
Yet it was in
opposition to this rescue mission of God that Jonah ran. Israel was still an
idolatrous nation. Jonah knew that Nineveh would be treated as sons of God if
they repented. This was a dangerous proposition for Israel, because once
Nineveh repented, God would use the city as a tool to chastise Israel (which
happened at the end of Jeroboam II’s reign just 20 years later).
A Rebel Heart
In 2nd Kings 14:25-27,
scripture records the service of the Prophet Jonah during the reign of Jeroboam
II (786-746 BC). There we read that Jonah’s first prophetic assignment was to
announce good news of Israel regaining land that had been lost.
First, we need
to see that Jonah was in no way an obscure character of the Bible who can be
written off as insignificant. Secondly, this book is not a parable, and Jonah
is not a fictional character. He is recorded in the detailed history of Israel,
and was immediately preceded by Elijah and Elisha in his service as a prophet.
To turn Jonah into a fable is to ignore remarkably accurate history and render
God’s word as untrustworthy. We have every reason to believe that this is an
autobiographical account of a miraculous work of God.
As a prophet, Jonah stood in the
company of a privileged few. His role was to reveal the will of God to the
people. He had the outstanding opportunity to have an intimate communion with
God, long before Christ opened the door for us all to approach Him with
boldness and confidence. “Jonah was a keeper of mysteries and a messenger of
hope” (Sinclair Ferguson – “Man Overboard!“). Jonah was privileged beyond measure because God’s word came to him,
especially since another prophet had just predicted a famine of God’s word
(Amos 8:11). But you are even more privileged – you possess the very Word of
God. You can discover His will with freedom.
Jonah was at one point in his life
a man of God. But somehow, Jonah’s heart fell away from the Lord. He was now a
rebel.
“But Jonah rose to flee to Tarshish from
the presence of the Lord”(1:3). Tarshish was as far away from Nineveh
(and Israel, for that matter) as Jonah could have tried to go. It is in modern
day Spain. Imagine Jonah’s delight as he went to Joppa, and not only finds a
boat with an open cabin, but a ship traveling straight to Tarshish! This would
have been a rare occurrence. On top of that, he even had enough money to pay
the fare. In all circumstances, everything about this trip seems to be going
great. In Jonah’s shoes, we would be very likely to assume that God was
providing His blessing on the trip. O.P. Robertson puts it like this: “Sometimes when everything is going right,
you conclude that God’s hand must be in it. But that may not be the case at
all. You need something more specific than circumstances. You need the
confirmation of the word of God.” (O. Palmer Robertson – “Jonah: A study in Compassion”)
Later we see that Jonah had such peace in his heart
about this decision that he could sleep through a terrible storm. Beware of placing
too much significance on feelings, and do not assume that feelings determine
whether or not you are doing the will of God. David felt fine about Bathsheba
and killing her husband before Nathan came to confront him on his sin. We have
all seen Christians break their promises, lie, cheat, and steal, and cover
their actions by saying things like “God really gave me a peace about this,”
which really means “I have suppressed my conscience on this matter”
(Robertson). In doing this, Christians make God into a manipulative tool to get
what they want by saying “God told me…”
Recently, a co-worker of my wife said
that God told her to go into debt so that she could have a bigger house and pay
for her iPhone. “Really, I was being disobedient by not allowing God to give me
these good things.” If you do not see the problem with this statement, it may
be time to check your heart against how God actually works – through His word
by the Holy Spirit. God’s will is not a toy for our enjoyment, or a
manipulative tool for us to use for our good. God’s will is set in stone,
graciously revealed to us in scripture. He will illuminate it to us by His Holy
Spirit as we seek His presence in His words. God’s word came to Jonah, and
Jonah did not like what he heard. So he ran.
A simple, true answer to the
question “Why did Jonah run?” is that he was unwilling to go to Nineveh. That
much is obvious from his reaction. But Jonah was far more than a terrible
missionary or disobedient prophet. Jonah ran
from God’s presence, not his job description. Jonah was running from the
very face of God. In this, Jonah was exhibiting symptoms of a genetic
predisposition. He was revealing an ugly family trait. This condition could
even be described as a heart disorder. Jonah was acting like his ancestors Adam
and Eve, whose sin sent them running to hide from their loving God and Father.
They ran from God’s very presence, not simply from his demands.
Re-tuning
A
heart outside of the will of God becomes like an out-of-tune instrument. A
guitar’s strings are tightened to a certain tension so that when they are
played, the sound waves produced hit our ears at intervals that result in
harmony. When even the slightest tightening or loosening occurs, the result is dissonance – a sound that is unpleasant
if not painful.
As our hearts loosen from the intended tension of the will of
God, the dissonance, the painful wringing out of a selfish note, begins to
reverberate in our hearts. And any stringed instrument, if left to itself, will
naturally go out of tune. Our hearts become intolerable and obnoxious.
How can a dissonant instrument be re-tuned? An outside,
sovereign force must turn its strings to change it from an instrument of divine displeasure
to one of divine pleasure.
This
process of re-tuning is a painful one. Guitar
strings place between 100 and 200 pounds of pressure on the neck of a guitar. But the result is beauty. In the life of a Christian, it is the fulfillment of God’s mission through His chosen
missionaries.
________________________________________________
So what about you? God’s will has
been made plain to you, even more clearly than He made it to Jonah. God has
called us to love the unlovable that He might rescue them by the work of Jesus on the Cross. Go with a readiness to lose your life, your
reputation, and your energy. But God will not leave you there.
The good news is that God intended
to keep His promise to return Jonah’s wayward, misaligned and out-of-tune heart
back to Himself. He keeps this promise
to you.