(A study on evangelism from the book of Jonah).
I still recall with great clarity the time in my life when God called me to ministry. I had only been a Christian for a few months when I began to sense that God was calling me to be an evangelist, but it was the last thing I wanted to be. I wanted to be a doctor and I was saving up my money so that I could go to university and become a doctor. But I had gotten involved with ‘Child Evangelism Fellowship’ and was helping to conduct back-yard Bible clubs for little children. I received great blessings from these and was especially excited when some little child would give his heart to Jesus that I could hardly sleep at night. The first time I led a child to Christ I was so happy that I could not sleep. I went for a long walk that night just praising and thanking God for the privilege. I thought I could do this all my life.
Then one day a Canadian missionary working in Haiti came to speak at our church in Jamaica. Her name was Mildred Warner and she was from Kitchener. She spoke of the needs in Haiti and challenged us to pray for Haiti and support the work in Haiti. I was touched. I got me a big map of Haiti, tacked it to my wall and began to pray for Haiti. I began to think that God wanted me to be a missionary to Haiti but that was not his plan.
Several months later I read the book ‘Shadow of the Almighty,’ telling the story of Jim Elliot and the five missionaries who were martyred in Ecuador when they tried to reach a stone-age tribe called the Aucas. The sense that God was calling me to evangelism and mission became even stronger. After completing the book I was having my quiet time one morning and I had prayed that God would show me what He wanted me to do. That morning the little devotional book I was reading centered its message on one verse, 1st Corinthians 9:16. Let me read that for you from the KJV as I read it then some 50 years ago:
‘For though I preach the gospel, I have nothing to glory of: for necessity is laid upon me; yea, woe is me if I preach not the gospel!’
After reading those words I knelt by me bed and surrendered myself to the will of God and the work of evangelism.
I don’t think there is anything in life more uplifting and more important than knowing what your purpose in life is – knowing why you were born into this world and knowing that there is something I stand for that can change the world. For me that something is proclaiming the gospel of Jesus Christ. Like the Olympians who went to the Winter Olympics in Vancouver, you find yourself gripped with a passion, not merely for a medal to hang around your neck, but a passion to make a difference. That’s what it means to have a sense of destiny.
The man whose life we are going to look at over the next few weeks was such a man. His name was Jonah and we are going to look at three aspects of his life today – Who he was, What he was called to do, and How he responded. But before we get into these three things, let me say something about the features of this book.
a. This is not a story about a big fish.
The story of the fish is fascinating and causes all kinds of interesting arguments among friends, but that is not what the book is all about. This is a book about the sovereignty of God in a man’s life and in the life of a nation. Jonah was a man who understood God in one way but who, through experience, came to discover the true nature and character of God.
b. This is a story about God’s love for lost people.
The people of Nineveh were some of the most wicked people of their time yet God in mercy and love reached out to them and brought many of them to faith in Him.
c. This is a story about the Church and every individual Christian.
We are called to involvement in sharing the Gospel with the world – sometimes to good people and sometimes to bad people – that is our mission. We are called to lay aside our reluctance and disobedience and fulfill the Lord’s commission to ‘go into all the world and preach the Gospel.’
d. This is a story about human weakness and inadequacy.
We all know what the commission is but we all feel inadequate to do the task. Jonah teaches us that our adequacy is not in ourselves but in the One who called us and sent us into the world.
So then, with that in mind, let’s take a closer look at Jonah.
1. Who is Jonah?
Read – Jonah 1:1. Look with me for a moment at 2nd kings 14:25. here Jonah is called God’s ‘servant.’ Now that term ‘servant’ is frequently used in the Old Testament as a technical term to describe someone who was specifically set apart by God for a unique purpose (Cp. Isaiah 52:13; 53:11; Amos 3:7).
Jonah was a man who had heard a clear call from God to proclaim His message and who had been specially empowered to carryout this mission. According to 2nd Kings 14:24 Jonah lived in an evil day. He was to preach God’s message to an evil generation. His call and his empowerment gave him a sense of destiny.
One of the most important thing for a Christian today is to have a sense of destiny, a sense of purpose. We live in a generation when people are purpose driven. That is perhaps why Rick Warren’s two books, ‘The Purpose Driven Life’ and ‘The Purpose Driven Church’ has had such an impact upon the Church around the world.
Looking back at the recent Winter Olympics in Vancouver, I recall athletes talking about their sense of destiny in relation to winning medal for their country. Sometimes people mistake ‘fame’ for a ‘sense of destiny,’ but fame is of little importance in the eyes of God.
Destiny has to do with what we stand for and what we do with what we stand for. In other words, the big question that every Christian needs to face is, ‘Why in the world am I here?’ Our usefulness in this world is directly related to our understanding to our purpose in life. We are most effective in what we do when we understand that we are doing exactly what God has called us to do.
Francis of Assisi was once asked what he would do if he were to learn that Christ was returning to earth tomorrow. He replied that he would do exactly what he was doing now. He had a sense that he was doing exactly what God had called him to do and that is all that was expected of him. That is having a sense of purpose and living it out.
This brings me to my next point.
2. What was Jonah called to do?
Jonah was directed by God to preach in Nineveh. The situation in Nineveh was historically well known. Nineveh was the capital city of the mighty Assyrian Empire. In fact it was the last capital of Assyria. It was situated in what is today called Iraq. It existed for 4500 years before Christ. It was destroyed and rebuilt many times and the last person to rebuild it was the famous Assyrian warrior Sennacherib. The population at the time of Jonah was estimated at 170,000 persons. To this city Jonah was called to go and preach. Note three things about this call.
a. It was absolutely clear – ‘Go to Nineveh.’
There was to be no doubt in Jonah’s mind as to where God was sending him. It was to the capital of the empire, not to the outskirts or to the little villages but to the capital city.
b. It was amazingly challenging – ‘the great city.’
Sending Jonah to preach in Nineveh was like sending someone today to plant a church in Tokyo or in Paris. It was challenging. Doing work in the inner city is never easy. Cities all have their own cultures and even more so in the inner city. Cities are usually full of crime and other threats to life, so it is hard work and this is what Jonah was been sent to do.
c. It was arrestingly frightful – ‘preach against it.’
Jonah’s message was not to be an easy one or a nice one. It was to be a message that was harsh – see Jonah 3:2 – 4. Such a message would upset people and as we will see later, one people you didn’t want to upset were the Assyrians.
This bring me to the third thing today:
3. How did Jonah respond?
‘Jonah ran away from the Lord and fled…v.3. Jonah obviously had a problem with the call.
a. It was not an intellectual problem for the call was absolutely clear.
Jonah had been told exactly where to go and what to do. Sometimes when we don’t understand what we are to do, we disobey out of ignorance, but that is not very often. Jonah knew and understood his call.
b. The problem was that God’s will clashed with Jonah’s will.
Jonah knew he had been called of God to preach and he had founded a little congregation on the outskirts of Israel not far from the seaport town of Joppa. He was comfortable preaching God’s message to this small group of people who were receiving it well. Now God calls him to the most difficult challenge of his life – God to Nineveh; preach against it. And Jonah simply runs away. This was not what he had in mind when he first answered the call and he is not about to commit suicide. Jonah had his own plans to fulfill when God stepped in and changed it all, and Jonah opted for his own plans.
What do you do with God’s will when God steps in and points you to a different pathway? If we want the continued blessing of God in our lives and we want to be useful and successful for God, we have to be willing to say, “Lord, not my will but your will be done.”
It is not just in the area of been called to preach that we face these decisions. Sometimes we face them in relationships like, who should I marry, should I accept this job, should I do what my friends are doing, should I spend this money, should I move to another city, should confront my friend on his lifestyle? And it goes on and on and on. In all of these things the important question is, what does God want me to do and am I willing to do it.
We had a term for that in the old days. We called it ‘full surrender.’ We used to sing in church ‘All to Jesus I surrender, All to Him I freely give; I will ever love and trust Him, In His presence daily live.’ But we rebel and run the other way primarily because God’s will clashes with our will and we do not trust Him to see us through to the end.
4. Why did Jonah run away?
Look at Jonah 4:2. Nineveh was the capital of an enemy empire. They hated the Jews and not only harassed them but was extremely cruel to them and to all their enemies. Let me read for you a little historical insight into the wickedness of the Assyrians.
‘As long as a town resisted the besieging Assyrians, all the inhabitant who fell into their hands were subjected to the most cruel tortures; they were cut to pieces, or impaled alive on stakes just in front of the lines so the besieged should enjoy full view of the sufferings of their comrades. Even during the course of a short siege this line of stakes would be prolonged till it formed a bloody fence between the two armies. When a town surrendered many people were thrown from the tops of the towers, or their ears and noses cut off, or their hands and feet amputated, or they and their children were roasted over a slow fire, or skinned alive, or decapitated and their heads piled in great pyramids.’
You can be sure that Jonah had seen some of these atrocities and knew exactly what the Ninevites were like. Yet, in the back of his mind was this fact, that God was a God of mercy and might indeed show grace to the Assyrians. If Jonah went into Nineveh and preached and God caused a great revival, what would become of Jonah? What would happen to his reputation as a prophet? Jonah would become known as ‘The Traitor prophet.’ Was God asking Jonah to sacrifice his reputation for this evil empire, for these ‘gentile dogs?’ As far as Jonah was concerned they deserved neither mercy nor grace from God. God might save them but not at Jonah’s expense.
The desire to maintain a reputation has always been a problem for many of God’s people. Think of the Christian who sits and listens to a dirty joke and laughs at it because he doesn’t want others to think of him as a wet blanket. Or the person indulges in heavy drinking with his friends because she doesn’t want them to think she is a Christian fanatic. Or the person who never invites his neighbour to church because he doesn’t want them to think he makes too much of religion. Each person is trying to preserve a part of a reputation which is the least part of one’s life. And in so doing we often neglect to carry out the purpose of God for our lives.
There is one more thing I want you to observe in this passage. Verse 3 says, ‘Jonah ran away from the Lord…’ In the KJV it says, ‘Jonah fled from the presence of the Lord…’ There is a slight change in meaning here but an important one. What the passage is really saying is that Jonah fled from the place where God was present, the place where His presence was felt. God is present everywhere but His presence is not always felt everywhere.
Where do we feel the presence of God? We feel it primarily in two places. We feel it in the place of prayer and in the place of worship. When we set aside time to pray and seek God and we find ourselves a ‘secret place’ to talk to Him, it is there we often experience His ‘felt’ presence. When we come to group worship with open hearts and minds to praise God it is there we feel His presence. Never neglect the place of prayer or the place of worship.
Lessons:
I have given you many lessons from these opening verses in the book of Jonah. I just want to re-emphasize three of these.
a. Seek to discover God’s purpose for your life and give yourself to it passionately.
b. Give yourself to obedience now. Past privilege and past fruitfulness can never substitute for present obedience.
c. Watch your heart for there is a little bit of Jonah in each of us.
