Jonah gets a second chance to do the will of God
Jonah chapter 3. Out of the Whale, A Second Call and the Result of the Preaching
Jonah is now out of the whale and on the dry land. What happens next ? Where does Jonah go? I turn to my 1866 book by Raleigh from Scotland :"
God did not prepare a great bird to bear him home on its wings. Probably he went to some house that was near for rest....Or perhaps he was cast up on the shore so near Joppa...Did he present himself at the place where he had paid his passage not many days before? ...Did the shipmaster and his sailors now their passenger again?...From Joppa the prophet probably went up to Jerusalem to appear in the temple, to voice his thanksgiving....Then he probably returned to Gath-Hepher, his former home..And there he was ..."
The call comes back to him, " And the word of the LORD came unto Jonah the second time saying , Arise, go unto Nineveh"
How many times he may have wondered, what do I do now? Is God going to use me in His service, or is this it? I talked to a pastor friend of mine in NJ the other day who put his heart , mind, and soul into his church up there , and the people have not responded. The church is being sold to another denomination. I told him, you have many gifts, talents, and abilities. God is not done with you yet.
In Jonah's case, he had learned that " Salvation is of the LORD" 2:9 and " I will sacrifice unto thee with the voice of thanksgiving; I will pay that I have vowed" Now it was a mercy and a element of God's loving grace that He did not cast Jonah aside, but he was a prophet and servant of the Lord, and now God comes back to him.
All of us can identify with this . God comes to us as well many times , more than two , certainly, and we follow Him finally, but He does not cast us off either as His children by faith in His Son. Remember in the NT, the account of Peter's denial, and that was 3 times!
II. Jonah is not to recreate some foreign message or stuff, but God tells Him " Arise, go unto Nineveh, that great city, and preach unto it the preaching that I bid thee." Preach the message that I will give you.
This is our task as well. Paul told Timothy 2 Tim 1:13, " Hold fast the form of sound words, which thou hast heard of me in faith and love which is in Christ Jesus. That good thing which was committed unto thee keep by the Holy Ghost which dwelleth in us....And the things which thou hast heard of me among many witnesses the same commit thou to faithful men, who shall be able to teach others also."
Jonah arose and he said, " Forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown." 3:4
Go and preach by your life and your words to others that Jesus Christ has a Church, that is His body where two or three are gathered together, He is in the midst. Tell them to be saved you must be a part of this Church , His visible body on earth. Do not forsake meeting together as the manner of some is but encourage one another as you see the Day approaching.
People may say," Well this or that has offended me." Well that is part of sin and our human experience. We cannot absent ourselves from the fellowship of the faithful because we are relying on feelings. " Forever thy Word is settled in heaven" the Psalmist said.
We ought to be running to the House of God . It ought to be where we grow in God's Holy Word, and listen to His ministers . Someone told me the other day that they could not go to church to hear the Word because all the translations contradict each other. This person did not even know that the original languages of the Bible are Hebrew and Greek.
The message is not going to change. It is " Repent, and believe the Gospel" Jesus will come one day we do not know in judgment this time. He will take His people to heaven. Come to worship. Come to the House of God. Come to be a part of the body of Christ on earth .
III. The Results of the preaching are seen
" So the people of Nineveh believed God, and proclaimed a fast, and put on sackcloth, from the greatest of them even to the least of them." 3:5
The King on the throne did as well vs. 6
The result is in the last vs. " And God saw their works, that they turned from their evil way: and God repented of the evil, that he had said that he would do unto them, and He did it not." 3:10
Alexander MacClaren says of it," The impression made by Jonah’s terrible cry is perfectly credible and natural in the excitable population of an Eastern city, in which even now any appeal to terror, especially if associated with religious and prophetic claims, easily sets the whole in a frenzy. Think of the grim figure of this foreign man, with his piercing voice and half-intelligible speech, dropped from the clouds as it were, and stalking through Nineveh, pealing out his confident message, like that gaunt fanatic who walked Jerusalem in its last agony, crying, ‘Woe! woe unto the bloody city!’ or that other, who, with flaming fire on his head and madness in his eyes, affrighted London in the plague. No wonder that alarm was kindled, and, being kindled, spread like wildfire. Apparently the movement was first among the people, who began to fast before the news penetrated to the seclusion of the palace. But the contagion reached the king, and the popular excitement was endorsed and fanned by a royal decree.
MacClaren's Expositions
Conclusion- Jonah was given a second chance to do what God had already asked him to do. A lesson for us to not wait till we rely on our stubborness or feelings to dictate to our moral minds in Christ. Take the message of the truth to others. That alone will convict of their need for repentance and faith. Nothing else but God's Spirit and His Word can take an unruly and unregenerate heart and make it new.
Jonah is now out of the whale and on the dry land. What happens next ? Where does Jonah go? I turn to my 1866 book by Raleigh from Scotland :"
God did not prepare a great bird to bear him home on its wings. Probably he went to some house that was near for rest....Or perhaps he was cast up on the shore so near Joppa...Did he present himself at the place where he had paid his passage not many days before? ...Did the shipmaster and his sailors now their passenger again?...From Joppa the prophet probably went up to Jerusalem to appear in the temple, to voice his thanksgiving....Then he probably returned to Gath-Hepher, his former home..And there he was ..."
The call comes back to him, " And the word of the LORD came unto Jonah the second time saying , Arise, go unto Nineveh"
How many times he may have wondered, what do I do now? Is God going to use me in His service, or is this it? I talked to a pastor friend of mine in NJ the other day who put his heart , mind, and soul into his church up there , and the people have not responded. The church is being sold to another denomination. I told him, you have many gifts, talents, and abilities. God is not done with you yet.
In Jonah's case, he had learned that " Salvation is of the LORD" 2:9 and " I will sacrifice unto thee with the voice of thanksgiving; I will pay that I have vowed" Now it was a mercy and a element of God's loving grace that He did not cast Jonah aside, but he was a prophet and servant of the Lord, and now God comes back to him.
All of us can identify with this . God comes to us as well many times , more than two , certainly, and we follow Him finally, but He does not cast us off either as His children by faith in His Son. Remember in the NT, the account of Peter's denial, and that was 3 times!
II. Jonah is not to recreate some foreign message or stuff, but God tells Him " Arise, go unto Nineveh, that great city, and preach unto it the preaching that I bid thee." Preach the message that I will give you.
This is our task as well. Paul told Timothy 2 Tim 1:13, " Hold fast the form of sound words, which thou hast heard of me in faith and love which is in Christ Jesus. That good thing which was committed unto thee keep by the Holy Ghost which dwelleth in us....And the things which thou hast heard of me among many witnesses the same commit thou to faithful men, who shall be able to teach others also."
Jonah arose and he said, " Forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown." 3:4
Go and preach by your life and your words to others that Jesus Christ has a Church, that is His body where two or three are gathered together, He is in the midst. Tell them to be saved you must be a part of this Church , His visible body on earth. Do not forsake meeting together as the manner of some is but encourage one another as you see the Day approaching.
People may say," Well this or that has offended me." Well that is part of sin and our human experience. We cannot absent ourselves from the fellowship of the faithful because we are relying on feelings. " Forever thy Word is settled in heaven" the Psalmist said.
We ought to be running to the House of God . It ought to be where we grow in God's Holy Word, and listen to His ministers . Someone told me the other day that they could not go to church to hear the Word because all the translations contradict each other. This person did not even know that the original languages of the Bible are Hebrew and Greek.
The message is not going to change. It is " Repent, and believe the Gospel" Jesus will come one day we do not know in judgment this time. He will take His people to heaven. Come to worship. Come to the House of God. Come to be a part of the body of Christ on earth .
III. The Results of the preaching are seen
" So the people of Nineveh believed God, and proclaimed a fast, and put on sackcloth, from the greatest of them even to the least of them." 3:5
The King on the throne did as well vs. 6
The result is in the last vs. " And God saw their works, that they turned from their evil way: and God repented of the evil, that he had said that he would do unto them, and He did it not." 3:10
Alexander MacClaren says of it," The impression made by Jonah’s terrible cry is perfectly credible and natural in the excitable population of an Eastern city, in which even now any appeal to terror, especially if associated with religious and prophetic claims, easily sets the whole in a frenzy. Think of the grim figure of this foreign man, with his piercing voice and half-intelligible speech, dropped from the clouds as it were, and stalking through Nineveh, pealing out his confident message, like that gaunt fanatic who walked Jerusalem in its last agony, crying, ‘Woe! woe unto the bloody city!’ or that other, who, with flaming fire on his head and madness in his eyes, affrighted London in the plague. No wonder that alarm was kindled, and, being kindled, spread like wildfire. Apparently the movement was first among the people, who began to fast before the news penetrated to the seclusion of the palace. But the contagion reached the king, and the popular excitement was endorsed and fanned by a royal decree.
MacClaren's Expositions
Conclusion- Jonah was given a second chance to do what God had already asked him to do. A lesson for us to not wait till we rely on our stubborness or feelings to dictate to our moral minds in Christ. Take the message of the truth to others. That alone will convict of their need for repentance and faith. Nothing else but God's Spirit and His Word can take an unruly and unregenerate heart and make it new.
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