KESWICK AT PORTSTEWART
MONDAY 7 JULY 2025 - BIBLE READING WITH SAM ALLBERRY
JONAH 1 VERSES 1 TO 6
Aslan" said Lucy "you're bigger".
"That is because you are older, little one" answered he.
"Not because you are?"
"I am not. But every year you grow, you will find me bigger.”
Jonah is designed to give us a bigger sense of God's mercy. It needs no introduction. Jonah himself forms the bulk of the narrative but the real feature is God's mercy. In most areas of life we go from dependence to increasingly independence. We learn to do something, it starts by needing someone to show you the ropes, then gradually you become OK by yourself until you think you have it all worked out. We begin by needing God to govern us but then we grow in our Christian life until we need God less. But what we tend to find in the Christian life is we need God more not needing him less. The message of the book of Jonah isn't 'stop being like Jonah', the message is 'we are like Jonah' which is why we need to look at Jesus for he came to people like us. The more we realise God has mercy the more we need it more.
Think of 3 things ...
Jonah is a surprising book
Jonah's surprising call
Jonah's surprising response
First - Jonah is a surprising book. Jonah is one of the minor prophets. It is called that because it is one of the smaller books of the Old Testament. Jonah is similar in length to the other minor prophets but it is a different kind of book. Normally we start with an introduction to the prophet and how the word came to that prophet. Then the rest of the book is the actual words God was saying to his people. Jonah starts with who the book is about and who his father was. The rest of the book is narrative not prophecy, a story. Not only that but a bizarre story. Not because he gets swallowed by a fish and is in the belly of the fish for 3 days and nights. No the most bizarre part of the book is the prophet is not for God but against him. Normally when a prophet proclaims God's word the wicked pagans are quick to respond. Here we have a man of God who has tantrums. A lot of people wonder if this book is real. They ask "do you think this actually happened?" People wonder if they should take it historically or is it a kind of parable. It certainly is a story of an oddball prophet whose life we can learn from. The book is not written as an obvious fantasy or fiction. It does not begin "once upon a time". No it starts with "the word of the Lord came to Jonah, the son of Amittai." These are real historical people and places. Jonah is not a made up character. He really lived. 2 Kings 14 mentions Jonah. That he was a real prophet, an actual person, the place was real. He was the same as any other named person in the bible. Nineveh is not made up. Jonah is told to go there. What do we know about this city? It was an influential city. A large city in the ancient world, in Assyria. In these verses it is described as a "great city". You can read about it in the history books. It is not written as fiction, it is real history. Real people and places. If you think it is too fantastic to read you will have real problems with the rest of the bible. Jesus mentions Jonah and draws the parallel between Jonah being in the fish for 3 days and Jesus being in the grave for 3 days. If you find that difficult how about someone emerging from death after 3 days. Jesus is moving from something miraculous to something more miraculous. If we struggle with that we will struggle in believing Jesus. It is unconventional and unexpected ant that is because God is unconventional and unexpected. His ways are not our ways. The gospel message is profoundly counter intuitive. It is very hard when you are tuned with one thing to do it the other way around. We have similar issues when we come to the grace of God. It goes against every fleshly instance inside of us. The way of the Lord is not our way of thinking. We need to remind ourselves of God's mercy because we forget it. The strangeness of God.
C S Lewis said "it is a religion you couldn't have guessed. If it offered us just the kind of universe we had always expected, I should feel we were making it up. But in fact, it is not the sort of thing anyone would have made up."
It continues to surprise us. If we are not surprised by the bible maybe we don't understand it. God does not treat us as we should.
Second - a surprising call. Verse 1. We begin with the word of the Lord before Jonah is mentioned. It is the starting point of everything. His speaking is not incidental. It is how he relates one word with one day and that word would become flesh. That same word comes to Jonah. The scene is now set. Everything is going to convention. The word of the Lord comes to Jonah. As a prophet that is expected of such. Here's the word and this is who it has to to. The word of God comes to Jonah. A surprising call because of where Jonah is to go. Verse 2 "arise, go to Nineveh". That is strange. Normally prophets were sent to minister to God's people, to stay in the land of God's people as opposed to going to the land of the enemy. Nineveh was the key city in Assyria. It was phenomenally brutal. Records of them skinning people and worse have been recorded of the Assyrians. They revelled in that brutality. They gloried in it. This is not Jonah's normal stamping ground. That is the point. God is assuming in verse 2 that every nation is accountable to him. God is not just the God of those who recognise him but those who don't know him too. Every city, every nation, every empire is morally accountable to God. He has the right to judge the sins of Nineveh. The God of the bible is the God of the whole world, whether people acknowledge him or not. Some people divide the world up - this is the Christian part, then there is the Muslim part in south Asia and you have Buddhism in eastern Asia. They mentally carve it up like that. All the world belongs to God. God has the right to bring his word to anywhere on this planet earth. Nowhere is the word that you should go there. There is no place that is categorically set apart for Jesus' message not to go. God is God of all the world. That does not mean we have no need for wisdom but everywhere and everyone comes under the scope of God. He has the right to judge every individual life. How many bristle against God judging the whole world but we need to. He will not tolerate evil. John 1 verse 2 reminds us there is such a thing as evil, not just in our own eyes but in God's eyes. It comes up before him and he will judge. God has the right to tell him to go to Nineveh. Jesus exercises that same right when he comes to us, to make disciples of all nations. All peoples need to hear the message of the gospel. It is not a surprising call and it is an appropriate one. God has the right to judge Nineveh.
Thirdly - a surprising response. The scene is set, the prophet is commissioned. We expect him to listen and obey. Jonah does arise but he goes in the opposite direction. Nineveh was out to the east, it is present day Iraq. He flees to Tarshish, the south coast of Spain. He goes as far as he can in the other direction. Tarshish was as far as anyone knew about in Jonah's day. Jonah is doing the opposite of what God is telling him to do. He is fleeing. He headed down to the port of Joppa and gets on a boat to Tarshish. He pays the fare and off he goes. Instead of preaching in hostile Nineveh he is on a cruise. What is going on? Why does he have such an allergic reaction to the place? He has been commissioned by God. What is going on? Why does he flee? Why is he running away? We don't find out the full answer until chapter 4. Jonah thought 'if I go as far as possible in the opposite direction, God will have to send someone else. If I make myself unavailable God will have to send some other prophet.' Jonah is not just trying to get away from the job but God himself - verse 10 "from the presence of the Lord." He knows his theology, he knows God is sovereign - Psalm 139. Jonah knows this stuff. Even if you have a space shape you cannot get away from the presence of the Lord. It is an example of good theology but a bad heart. He is trying to flee from God relationally and personally. Jonah is saying "I don't want a relationship with God any more." He is fleeing from God's presence. Jonah is a reflection of us. The more I have been looking at this book the more I see Jonah is a mirror of ourselves, Mark 8 verse 34 Jesus says he has the right to every single part of your life and mine. You are to deny self, yield you are to him, hand it over and take up your cross and follow him. What I love about Jesus is this - he does not bury something in the small print. Jesus puts it up front. Before people start following him you have to give him everything, all of your life belongs to Christ. That raises the question - what is off limits in your life to God? What are you keeping back from God? What are you not willing to give to him? Many will say "I have been a Christian for many years, of course God has got most of my life." Jonah would have said the same thing. He was a mature believer, he had a proven ministry. When God touched a particular nerve he was off. I have seen this happen to many people - something happens and they immediately abandon the Lord. Something is always being held back. In all of us we want something for ourselves. For Jonah he flees from God. God has found the non-negotiable in his life. Amazingly God pursues Jonah. A boat just happens to be available. It is possible to flee God and it looks like doors are opening for you. We see God pursuing Jonah. God in his mercy is following him. Verse 4. God can throw entire weather systems into chaos. He caused the biggest storm on the sea. The ship is about to split apart. Verse 5 - the mariners did this for a living and they are now afraid. Seasoned professionals are terrified. It gets so extreme that it causes them to panic. Their lives are at risk. When it is the choice of the cargo or me I am throwing the cargo overboard. Where is Jonah? He had gone down to the lower most part of the ship and lay down and slept. He was unaware, had checked out of reality. He can sleep through the storm. The captain of the ship is thinking 'maybe your God is better at the sea thing than ours is.' Even now Jonah does not pray. He cannot bear to look God in the eye. Still God pursues him. Isn't that amazing?
To finish I want to draw our attention to the life of Jesus and an event that resembles the life of Jonah. It is found in Mark 4 and another storm, another boat and Jesus lying asleep. There are so many parallels to Jonah's story. They are out on a boat with others. A sudden extremely violent storm comes up. The boat is in risk of sinking. The mariners on both are in fear of their lives. Jesus and Jonah are both sleeping. In both cases they are challenged about sleeping in the storm. The storms are supernaturally calmed. Every one is left in greater fear than when the storm was at its height. The calming makes the people more fearful than the storm had been. So many parallels that we are meant to note. The difference though - Jesus was not there fleeing God. He came onto planet earth because he was heeding God's call. When God called him to do the improbable, to take the cup of wrath we deserve Jesus' response was not to flee. His response was "not my will but yours be done." He chose to take the punishment we deserved. Jonah turned from the presence of the Lord in disobedience. Jesus was turned from the presence of God out of his love for us so that we might be invited into the presence of God. Even though we react and resent what God says to us at times, he has pursued us. We don't bear the consequences of our sin, he has borne them for us on our behalf. He does not provide mercy to match our sin, he provides mercy out of all proportion to our sin. He has more mercy than you need. Maybe some of us are thinking 'I know this true for every one in this room but I am too far gone for Jesus. I have messed up so bad. There is too much sin in my life.' I have to say "you are not that special"! There is more grace in Jesus. No matter how we might find ourselves - fleeing from Jesus - he continues to pursue us.
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