The Reluctant Missionary – Part 2
Jonah 1:1-17 (4-17)
January 8, 2023
As you know we are now in a new year
And we have begun our annual “Missions Month” here at the church.
We like to take this first month of the year and remind ourselves of the mandate
That remains for believers to take the gospel to the ends of the earth.
It is why we remain here on earth.
And this year for our study we are looking at the BOOK OF JONAH.
As the famous Veggie Tales song about Jonah goes:
“Jonah was a prophet, but he really never got it. If you watch him you can spot it, he
did not get the point.”
Jonah is a negative example of what a missionary ought to be.
“A Heart Out Of Rhythm”
AS WE SAW LAST WEEK:
• Jonah was a missionary who hated sinners.
• Jonah was a missionary who hated the gospel.
• Jonah was a missionary who even hated that God was merciful.
We are learning about missions from this bad missionary example.
We are breaking this chapter down into 6 points. We started the first point last week.
#1 DISOBEDIENCE
Jonah 1:1-3
Here we have God, by His mercy, breaking the silence
With a SPECIAL REVELATION for the people of Nineveh.
And God commanded Jonah to take that message to them,
But Jonah said “No.”
In fact, we read that “Jonah fled from the presence of the LORD.”
Jonah didn’t even want to be around God.
• He hated the people of Nineveh
• He did not want them to hear God’s warning of judgment.
• He will later reveal in chapter 4 that he didn’t want to warn them of judgment because he was afraid they might repent
• And if they repented he was afraid that God would forgive them.
Jonah did not want the Ninevites forgiven
So he disobeyed God’s command and fled from His presence.
Such behavior even caused us to question Jonah’s salvation.
(A theory Carrie argued with me about)
The fact is, it’s hard to say if Jonah was saved or not.
• It is true that God spoke to him and commissioned him.
• But it is true that God spoke to Balaam and commissioned him as well.
Either way, we can agree that Jonah’s behavior of disobedience
Is not the behavior of the children of God.
At the very least he has a HEART THAT IS BEATING OUT OF RHYTHM.
Now, one thing we didn’t discuss last week is
WHY JONAH HAD SUCH HATRED FOR THE NINEVITES.
And I’ll tell you that no one can be certain,
But history gives some pretty good possible explanations.
Jonah actually shows up in the Old Testament narrative
Outside of the book that is attributed to him.
2 Kings 14:23-25 “In the fifteenth year of Amaziah the son of Joash king of Judah, Jeroboam the son of Joash king of Israel became king in Samaria, and reigned forty-one years. He did evil in the sight of the LORD; he did not depart from all the sins of Jeroboam the son of Nebat, which he made Israel sin. He restored the border of Israel from the entrance of Hamath as far as the Sea of the Arabah, according to the word of the LORD, the God of Israel, which He spoke through His servant Jonah the son of Amittai, the prophet, who was of Gath-hepher.”
Because of this passage we know
WHERE Jonah lived and we know WHEN Jonah lived.
• He lived in the Northern kingdom in the region otherwise known as Galilee.
• His prophetic ministry was during the time of Jeroboam II.
THIS PUTS THE MINISTRY OF JONAH
• Roughly 60 years before the Assyrians would conquer the Northern Kingdom and take them captive.
• It also makes Jonah a contemporary of 2 other prophets, namely Amos and Hosea.
While Assyria has not committed her most heinous cruelty against Israel,
Her future attack has BEEN PROPHESIED.
Amos 5:27 “Therefore, I will make you go into exile beyond Damascus,” says the LORD, whose name is the God of hosts.”
Hosea 11:5 “They will not return to the land of Egypt; But Assyria—he will be their king Because they refused to return to Me.”
So Assyria hasn’t yet attacked Israel,
But God had already made it apparent that they would.
Coupled with that,
History notes THE EXCEPTIONAL CRUELTY of the Assyrian kingdoms.
The MEMOIRS and chronicles of the Assyrian kings
Reveals common practices of cruelty against their enemies.
Things like:
• Commonly beheading their enemies and piling the heads outside their enemies’ gates.
• They are noted for skinning their enemies, sometimes alive, and draping their skin over their own city walls.
• They often times took pleasure in mutilating both the dead and the living and humiliating them.
• They burned multitudes in the fire.
• And all of this was bragged about by their kings in their memoirs.
(Walvoord & Zuck [The Bible Knowledge Commentary: Old Testament; Victor Publishing; Colorado Springs, CO; 1998] pg. 1494)
The book of Nahum describes the city of Nineveh which was Assyria’s capitol.
Nahum 3:1-4 “Woe to the bloody city, completely full of lies and pillage; Her prey never departs. The noise of the whip, The noise of the rattling of the wheel, Galloping horses And bounding chariots! Horsemen charging, Swords flashing, spears gleaming, Many slain, a mass of corpses, And countless dead bodies— They stumble over the dead bodies! All because of the many harlotries of the harlot, The charming one, the mistress of sorceries, Who sells nations by her harlotries And families by her sorceries.”
What you have represented by Nineveh then
Is a people who were deemed unworthy of forgiveness by Jonah.
• They were too cruel.
• They were too vicious.
• They had shown no mercy to anyone.
• And they were even a promised future threat to Israel.
It is clear that Jonah wanted no part of their redemption or forgiveness.
His one consolation had always been that God would soon destroy them,
And now he feared that instead God would show them mercy.
THIS ANGERED JONAH.
IT EVEN MADE HIM ANGRY AT GOD.
SO JONAH FLED.
I can’t help but think about the story of Cory Ten Boom “The Hiding Place”
And how she was humiliated in the German concentration camps being paraded naked as a prisoner.
And then one day while having returned to Germany
To speak about forgiveness she tells this story:
“It was in a church in Munich that I saw him, a balding heavyset man in a gray overcoat, a brown felt hat clutched between his hands. People were filing out of the basement room where I had just spoken, moving along the rows of wooden chairs to the door at the rear. It was 1947 and I had come from Holland to defeated Germany with the message that God forgives. It was the truth they needed most to hear in that bitter, bombed-out land, and I gave them my favorite mental picture. Maybe because the sea is never far from a Hollander’s mind, I liked to think that that’s where forgiven sins were thrown. “When we confess our sins,” I said, “God casts them into the deepest ocean, gone forever.” The solemn faces stared back at me, not quite daring to believe. There were never questions after a talk in Germany in 1947. People stood up in silence, in silence collected their wraps, in silence left the room. And that’s when I saw him, working his way forward against the others. One moment I saw the overcoat and the brown hat; the next, a blue uniform and a visored cap with its skull and crossbones. It came back with a rush: the huge room with its harsh overhead lights, the pathetic pile of dresses and shoes in the center of the floor, the shame of walking naked past this man. I could see my sister’s frail form ahead of me, ribs sharp beneath the parchment skin. Betsie, how thin you were. Betsie and I had been arrested for concealing Jews in our home during the Nazi occupation of Holland; this man had been a guard at Ravensbrück concentration camp where we were sent. Now he was in front of me, hand thrust out: “A fine message, fräulein! How good it is to know that, as you say, all our sins are at the bottom of the sea!” And I, who had spoken so glibly of forgiveness, fumbled in my pocketbook rather than take that hand. He would not remember me, of course–how could he remember one prisoner among those thousands of women? But I remembered him and the leather crop swinging from his belt. It was the first time since my release that I had been face to face with one of my captors and my blood seemed to freeze. “You mentioned Ravensbrück in your talk,” he was saying. “I was a guard in there.” No, he did not remember me. “But since that time,” he went on, “I have become a Christian. I know that God has forgiven me for the cruel things I did there, but I would like to hear it from your lips as well. Fräulein”–again the hand came out–“will you forgive me?” And I stood there–I whose sins had every day to be forgiven–and could not. Betsie had died in that place–could he erase her slow terrible death simply for the asking? It could not have been many seconds that he stood there, hand held out, but to me it seemed hours as I wrestled with the most difficult thing I had ever had to do.
https://guideposts.org/positive-living/guideposts-classics-corrie-ten-boom-forgiveness/
If you keep reading you’ll find that Cory did in fact forgive the man.
But you can imagine how little compassion she would have felt.
I remember speaking with an older gentleman from Byers, TX right after I was fired at the church in Crawford. I had gone to preach in Byers and he took me out to eat. Perhaps he still sensed by anger from the war that took place at that church. But he shared with me how thrilled he was when his daughter surrendered to be a missionary and how appalled he was when he found out she was going to Japan. He had served in WWII and those were “dirty Japs”. In his mind they didn’t deserve forgiveness. Though he did learn to forgive and even accompany his daughter.
John MacArthur shared a story in a sermon called “The Love of God”
“I don’t know how it struck you, but it struck me as an amazing thing on one hand, and yet not so amazing on the other, that before Jeffrey Dahmer – the mask-murdering, homosexual who killed seventeen and cannibalized a number of them – died at the hands of some fellow prisoners, he had made a confession of faith in the Lord Jesus Christ and been baptized. In fact, I had occasion to read his will, in which repeatedly he expressed his genuine faith in the Lord Jesus Christ in confidence that Christ had forgiven all his sin. And I heard an interview with the chaplain who said that there was no question in his mind but that the faith of Jeffrey Dahmer’s was indeed placed in Jesus Christ and that he was now in His presence.”
https://www.gty.org/library/sermons-library/90-77/the-love-of-god-part-1
Or perhaps today we think of Isis or some other terrorist band.
• Maybe we think of child traffickers or child molesters
• Maybe we think of drug lords smuggling drugs across the border.
• Maybe we think of corrupt leaders who caused millions to suffer.
But you understand what it is to face the reality of
People who have done heinous things finding God’s forgiveness.
JONAH COULDN’T STOMACH IT.
And that tells us something else about Jonah.
• Not only did he hate sinners.
• Not only did he hate the gospel.
• Not only did he have a hatred towards God.
• Jonah had never come face to face with his own sinfulness.
Jesus is clear in the beatitudes:
Matthew 5:7 “Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy.”
IT’S NOT that you earn mercy by showing mercy.
Rather, it is that people who can’t show mercy
Indicate that they have never grasped
How much mercy they themselves have needed.
We think of the story of Jesus (Matthew 18:23-35)
• About the king who forgave his slave that insurmountable debt
(10,000 talents = 3.6 billion)
• Only to watch the slave go and choke his fellow slave over a much smaller debt
(100 denarii – $10,000).
A failure to show mercy reveals a failure to grasp ones own need for it.
And this is Jonah’s problem too.
• He is a disobedient man who has failed to see his own sinfulness.
• He hates sinners and the gospel that forgives them.
• And he hates that God would ask him to offer it.
None of that is what a missionary is called to be.
Jonah is a horrible missionary example.
If you are going to be the type of missionary Scripture commands you to be. (really even the Christian Scripture commands)
1. You must grasp to some extent your own unworthiness of forgiveness.
2. You must love the gospel that explains how forgiveness is won.
3. You must love the mercy of God and the God of mercy.
4. You must have a willingness to obey God.
JONAH HAD NONE OF THOSE THINGS
But we’re not done.
Disobedience
#2 DISCONNECT
Jonah 1:4-6
So Jonah is in a boat sailing for Tarshish
And Jonah had gone downstairs in the boat and has FALLEN ASLEEP.
He was fleeing from the presence of the LORD.
HOWEVER:
Psalms 139:7-10 “Where can I go from Your Spirit? Or where can I flee from Your presence? If I ascend to heaven, You are there; If I make my bed in Sheol, behold, You are there. If I take the wings of the dawn, If I dwell in the remotest part of the sea, Even there Your hand will lead me, And Your right hand will lay hold of me.”
Jonah could not escape God.
(4-5) “The LORD hurled a great wind on the sea and there was a great storm on the sea so that the ship was about to break up. Then the sailors became afraid and every man cried to his god, and they threw the cargo which was in the ship into the sea to lighten it for them. But Jonah had gone below into the hold of the ship, lain down and fallen sound asleep.”
What we find startling here is that
Jonah seems so ok with his disobedience.
Not only is he a man who is fleeing from God,
But he seems rather unbothered by it all.
AND EVEN IN THE MIDST OF THIS STORM, JONAH IS SLEEPING.
When people do wicked things someone might ask them, “How do you sleep at night?”
(Apparently Jonah slept just fine in his wicked demeanor)
And then comes A Remarkable Confrontation
Which shows just how disconnected Jonah was from God.
(6) “So the captain approached him and said, “How is it that you are sleeping? Get up, call on your god. Perhaps your god will be concerned about us that we will not perish.”
Let’s just state it like this.
“Non-believers should never have to tell believers to pray.”
JONAH IS TOTALLY DISCONNECTED.
• He’s not concerned about the Ninevites.
• He’s not concerned about disobeying God.
• He’s not concerned about his fellow sailors.
JONAH COULD JUST CARE LESS.
THAT IS ALSO NOT A MISSIONARY MINDSET.
• Do we not care that people are perishing?
• Do we not care that they don’t know the gospel?
I’m reminded of the story of “The Woman at The Well”
When Jesus is witnessing to that woman
But the disciples are off in town buying food.
When they return we read:
John 4:31-38 “Meanwhile the disciples were urging Him, saying, “Rabbi, eat.” But He said to them, “I have food to eat that you do not know about.” So the disciples were saying to one another, “No one brought Him anything to eat, did he?” Jesus said to them, “My food is to do the will of Him who sent Me and to accomplish His work. “Do you not say, ‘There are yet four months, and then comes the harvest’? Behold, I say to you, lift up your eyes and look on the fields, that they are white for harvest. “Already he who reaps is receiving wages and is gathering fruit for life eternal; so that he who sows and he who reaps may rejoice together. “For in this case the saying is true, ‘One sows and another reaps.’ “I sent you to reap that for which you have not labored; others have labored and you have entered into their labor.”
It is a very convicting rebuke from Jesus to those disciples.
They walked in and out of that town
And their mind never moved past their own desire for bread.
It’s as if Jesus reveals, “I didn’t send you into that town for bread, I sent you there for souls. You totally missed the point.”
It’s easy to get busy and distracted in life and forget our main purpose.
Jonah was sleeping, how many times are we caught sleeping as well?
Just totally disconnected from the lost world around us.
JONAH IS NOT A GOOD MISSIONARY.
Disobedience, Disconnect
#3 DELUSION
Jonah 1:7-9
Despite the fact that Jonah is walking in total disobedience,
You can’t help but notice that
JONAH IS ABSOLUTELY CLUELESS AS TO HIS SPIRITUAL CONDITION.
• So the captain woke Jonah up and told him to pray.
• Obviously the prayers were not seeming to accomplish anything.
• So the sailors hatch a new plan.
• Let’s find out who is causing this.
• And they start casting lots.
(7-8) “Each man said to his mate, “Come, let us cast lots so we may learn on whose account this calamity has struck us.” So they cast lots and the lot fell on Jonah. Then they said to him, “Tell us, now! On whose account has this calamity struck us? What is your occupation? And where do you come from? What is your country? From what people are you?”
Granted it was a superstitious way,
But God has granted them to know that Jonah was their problem.
This storm was Jonah’s fault.
So the sailors start interrogating Jonah.
And when they interrogate him look at what he says:
(9) “He said to them, “I am a Hebrew, and I fear the LORD God of heaven who made the sea and the dry land.”
THAT’S PRETTY RICH ISN’T IT?
• “I fear the LORD God of heaven”
What have you seen in Jonah’s life thus far
That would indicate that he had any fear of God whatsoever?
• Was it his lack of mercy?
• Was it his disobedience?
• Was it his neglect to pray?
WHAT WAS IT THAT CONVINCED YOU JONAH FEARED GOD?
NOTHING
JONAH IS DELUSIONAL.
• He hates sinners
• He hates the gospel
• He hates God’s mercy
• He is clueless of his own sin
• And yet he thinks he is still a devout God-fearing man.
It is possible to be totally disobedient in the arena of missions
And still perceive yourself to be a faithful obedient Christian.
Jonah did it.
That’s a prayer for us right there in and of itself.
“God, please don’t let me deceive myself.”
WE SEE AGAIN: Resemblance to that older brother in the story of the prodigal who had the audacity to tell his father:
Luke 15:29 “But he answered and said to his father, ‘Look! For so many years I have been serving you and I have never neglected a command of yours; and yet you have never given me a young goat, so that I might celebrate with my friends;”
Jonah sounds like those Pharisees “who tithe mint and dill and cumin but neglect the weightier provisions of the Law; justice and mercy and faithfulness.”
Jonah is self-deceived.
Disobedience, Disconnect, Delusion
#4 DESPERATION
Jonah 1:10-13
Now we come to a very interesting portion of the story.
It serves for us as A REMARKABLE CONTRAST.
Take a moment and compare the behavior of Jonah
With the behavior of these pagan sailors.
(10) “Then the men became extremely frightened and they said to him, “How could you do this?” For the men knew that he was fleeing from the presence of the LORD, because he had told them.”
So we have Jonah,
• The Israelite
• The prophet
• The man who claims to fear God
But disobeying God hasn’t seemed to bother him in the least,
In fact he was fine just going to sleep.
And then we have the sailors,
• Pagans
• Idol worshipers
And they are totally shocked that Jonah would be so irreverent to God.
“How could you do this?” they questioned.
We already said that unbelievers should never have to tell believers to pray
And now we can say as well that, “Unbelievers should never be more shocked at appalled by disobedience than believers are.”
And yet that is the case here again.
Isaiah 1:2-3 “Listen, O heavens, and hear, O earth; For the LORD speaks, “Sons I have reared and brought up, But they have revolted against Me. “An ox knows its owner, And a donkey its master’s manger, But Israel does not know, My people do not understand.”
That is Jonah and it is certainly A SHOCKING REALITY.
(11-12) “So they said to him, “What should we do to you that the sea may become calm for us?”—for the sea was becoming increasingly stormy. He said to them, “Pick me up and throw me into the sea. Then the sea will become calm for you, for I know that on account of me this great storm has come upon you.”
So the sailors want to know what they can do to get the storm to stop
And notice Jonah’s response:
“Pick me up and throw me into the sea…”
You’d think Jonah might have said, “Sail to Nineveh”.
But apparently Jonah would rather drown
Than tell the Ninevites the message of God.
And then we read this amazing fact.
(13) “However, the men rowed desperately to return to land but they could not, for the sea was becoming even stormier against them.”
Jonah told them to throw him into the sea
• The sailors didn’t do it.
• First they tried to fight the storm.
• First they tried to row with all their might.
NOW NOTICE THE IRONY HERE.
Jonah won’t go to the Ninevites
Because he doesn’t think they deserve mercy.
But here Jonah has put these sailors in very grave danger.
• They are about to die because of Jonah
• Not to mention they are already facing a large economic loss having been
forced to jettison their cargo into the sea.
BUT EVEN THEN THEY SHOW MERCY TO JONAH
By first trying to save his life before they toss him overboard.
DO YOU SEE THE REALITY?
THESE PAGAN SAILORS CARE MORE ABOUT JONAH
THAN JONAH DOES ABOUT NINEVEH.
They are more desperate to save Jonah’s life
Than Jonah is to save the lives of the Ninevites.
And we have to ask ourselves
How much effort are we willing to give for the salvation of the lost?
• How much rejection will we endure?
• How much cost will we pay?
• How much inconvenience will we suffer?
We think of Paul being begged by his friends not to go to Jerusalem and he said:
Acts 21:13 “Then Paul answered, “What are you doing, weeping and breaking my heart? For I am ready not only to be bound, but even to die at Jerusalem for the name of the Lord Jesus.”
Or I think of Paul in that Philippian jail when the earthquake hit and the door sprang open and the guard was about to kill himself and secure Paul and Silas’ freedom.
Acts 16:28 “But Paul cried out with a loud voice, saying, “Do not harm yourself, for we are all here!”
I think of Elizabeth Elliot.
You are familiar with her husband Jim Elliot who was speared to death
In Ecuador by the tribe of natives he had gone to reach.
He’s the man with the famous quote “He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose.”
Did you know that
• After his death his wife was still committed to reaching the same Huaorani Indians that had killed her husband?
• That her plan for reaching them was to sail to them down the river with her infant child with her in order to make herself appear less threatening?
To what lengths will we go
To make sure that the lost hear the gospel?
JESUS LEFT HEAVEN TO COME TO EARTH
Hannah sang it: (Jerusalem by City Alight)
See Him in Jerusalem, walking where the crowds are. Once these streets had sung to Him, now they cry for murder. Such a frail and lonely man holding up the heavy cross. See Him walking in Jerusalem, on the road to save us.
See Him there upon the hill, hear the scorn and laughter. Silent as a lamb He waits, praying to the Father. See the King, who made the sun and the moon and shining stars, let the soldiers hold and nail Him down, so that He could save them.
IT IS A MARK AGAINST JONAH
That these pagan sailors cared more about his life
Than Jonah did about the Ninevites.
And yet, if I am honest, I can certainly resemble Jonah.
We see desperation at this point in the story,
BUT IT IS COMING FROM THE WRONG PLACE.
It should have been coming from Jonah,
It was instead coming from these pagan sailors.
Disobedience, Disconnect, Delusion, Desperation
#5 DELIVERANCE
Jonah 1:14-16
And here again the sovereign prerogative of God takes over.
Having seen that they could not row past the storm
These men turn their attention to Jonah’s God.
(14) “Then they called on the LORD and said, “We earnestly pray, O LORD, do not let us perish on account of this man’s life and do not put innocent blood on us; for You, O LORD, have done as You have pleased.”
We talked last time about GENERAL REVELATION
Things like creation and nature.
Here you see another element of general revelation and that is the CONSCIENCE.
• These men, even though they did not have the Law of God, intrinsically knew that murder was wrong.
And now, having been forced to do what offends their conscience,
They cry out to God for mercy.
They RECOGNIZE His sovereign hand behind the storm
And they CRY out to Him for mercy.
(15) “So they picked up Jonah, threw him into the sea, and the sea stopped its raging.”
The second Jonah hit the water, the water became calm.
God’s wrath was satisfied.
And you are tempted to think that this is the deliverance.
• It is not.
• It is true that God saved their lives from the storm.
But the true deliverance here is found in verse 16.
(16) “Then the men feared the LORD greatly, and they offered a sacrifice to the LORD and made vows.”
THAT IS THEIR DELIVERANCE.
THAT IS THEIR SALVATION.
And we again marvel at the sovereign prerogative of God.
God determined to save these men and God did it in spite of Jonah.
Jonah was a terrible missionary.
• He did not care about the Ninevites
• He did not care about these sailors.
• It was Jonah who employed them into disobedience.
• It was Jonah who slept instead of praying.
• He never even tried to teach these men about the mercy of God.
AND YET, in spite of Jonah’s pitiful example,
These men end up getting saved.
• They offer a sacrifice, understanding their need for atonement
• They made vows indicating their understanding of faithful submission.
God saved these men in spite of Jonah.
So while we certainly strive to be usable vessels to God
It is certainly comforting to know that God can save in spite of us.
Too often Missions is portrayed as though the entire plan of God’s salvation stands or falls based upon our involvement.
THAT’S NOT TRUE.
Jesus said that “All who the Father has given Me will come to Me.”
We’re not lifting up the story of Jonah as a story to say,
“If you don’t do your job then the lost will never be saved.”
No, the story of Jonah is a story of self-evaluation.
• If I am not a missionary, what does that say about me?
• What does my lack of mercy say about me?
• What does my lack of obedience say about me?
• What does my lack of prayer say about me?
GOD DELIVERED THESE MEN IN SPITE OF JONAH.
GOD IS SAVING MEN TODAY.
IS YOUR HEART BEATING IN RHYTHM WITH HIS?
And then we get one more final point to the opening narrative of this story.
#6 DIGESTION
Jonah 1:17
Jonah chose drowning over Nineveh, but God had other plans.
God intervened again and “appointed a great fish to swallow Jonah”.
And again God’s sovereign prerogative is remarkable.
All Jonah did was rebel against God.
And yet
Not only did God save the sailors through Jonah
But God also performed through Jonah
Perhaps the greatest Old Testament sign of Jesus.
Matthew 12:39-40 “But He answered and said to them, “An evil and adulterous generation craves for a sign; and yet no sign will be given to it 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 will the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.”
Jonah actually became a “type” of Jesus.
Jonah was handed over to death for the salvation of sinners.
Jonah will immerge from death for the salvation of sinners.
JONAH COULD NOT THWART THE PLAN OF GOD AT ALL.
Now we back up and look at the opening chapter of this story
And we learn a great deal about missions.
• We learn that a missionary must love the lost.
• We learn that a missionary must love the gospel.
• We learn that a missionary must have mercy.
• We learn that a missionary must be devoted to the mission.
We also learn that even when they are not,
It does not stop the sovereign plan of God.
(He can and will save sinners in spite of us)
THE QUESTION WE ARE ASKING IS:
IF I AM NOT A MISSIONARY, WHY NOT?
• Where is my obedience?
• Where is my mercy?
• Where is my love for the gospel?
In chapter 2 Jonah is going to experience revival.
Jonah is going to stop fleeing from God and start seeking God.
(2:4) “So I said, “I have been expelled from Your sight. Nevertheless I will look again toward Your holy temple.”
(2:9) “But I will sacrifice to You with the voice of thanksgiving. That which I have vowed I will pay. Salvation is from the LORD.”
That may have been Jonah’s actual salvation.
At the very least it is repentance and revival in his life.
And if my heart is not beating in rhythm with God’s heart
Then this is the response for me as well.
