04/15/2020 GETTING THROUGH IT –
(Lessons from Jonah)
Jonah: 4:5,10 So Jonah went out and sat sulking on the east side of the city…Then the LORD said, “You feel sorry for yourself when your shelter is destroyed, though you did no work to put it there, and it is, at best, short-lived. And why shouldn’t I feel sorry for a great city like Nineveh with its 120,000 people in utter spiritual darkness, and all its cattle?”
Summary
Roman 15:4 tells us: “For whatever was written in earlier times was written for our instruction so that through perseverance and the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope.”
Let’s listen to what Jonah can tell us about “Getting Through It.”
JONAH
Life Before the Trial – My name is Jonah. And to be honest, I’m a “real piece of work.” Some of you may even call me a stone-cold racist. All I can say is that it is true that I hate Nineveh and its people.1 I’m from Gath-helper, a village about 2 miles Northeast of Nazareth. (2Kings14:25) Some of you may be wondering how did I come to hate these people? Did my father, Amittai, raise me in a racist household or did those Nineveh people do something to me? Well, none of that is really relevant to my story. Let’s just say “I am what I am.” I make it my business to stay as far away from Nineveh as possible. What is relevant is this: I’m a Hebrew, a prophet, like my father. I believe in GOD. I’m just a hating Nineveh GOD believing prophet.
As GOD’s messenger, my job is to deliver GOD’s message. And, one day, it happened. GOD gave me a message to deliver. The problem was that the message was to Ninevah! [Who says GOD doesn’t have a sense of humor.] My immediate reaction was “No, Absolutely Not!” I’m not going. It didn’t matter that GOD’s message to Ninevah was a warning, that GOD was going to destroy Ninevah for their wickedness if they didn’t repent. (Jonah 1.2). In fact, I was thinking, let them be destroyed! Who cares! So, I decided to defy GOD. I ran. Looking back, I actually thought I could hide! (Jonah 1:3-4) I went down to the dock and I boarded a ship heading for Tarshish, about 600 miles from Ninevah! (Jonah1:3) I actually thought I was safe. But, all too soon I was to learn a really powerful lesson. Namely, that with GOD, there is no hiding place!
My Trials – Let me tell you what happened. I was sound asleep when suddenly the captain of the ship started violently shaking me awake. (Jonah 1:6). Apparently, I had been sleeping through a terrible storm. I had been completely oblivious as to what was happening around me. The storm was so violent the captain, a pagan was urging everyone on board to pray. The captain told me to pray to my GOD and to beg for mercy for us all. (Jonah 1:6). I was figuring out a way to stall, since, as I said, I was hiding from GOD, when suddenly one of crewman got the bright idea to have everyone draw straws to see who had offended the gods and caused the storm, as these pagans believed in many gods. (Jonah 1:7). The idea of this game was that the guilty one would draw the short straw. I believed in the one TRUE GOD, JEHOVAH. I didn’t believe in any of the false pagan gods or drawing straws. But I went along anyway. In my mind, I was thinking, what are chances that these pagan worshippers will figure out it was me.
Well, as I said before, GOD has a sense of humor, and after everyone drew, I looked down and saw that I drew the short straw! (Jonah 1:7) At this point, these crewmen demanded to know what was going on. So, I told them the truth. I told them I was a Jew, that I worshipped JEHOVAH, the GOD of heaven, earth, and sea and that I was running away from HIM, but that apparently my plan hadn’t worked. As the storm worsened, I realized that this storm was all my fault. My sins had caught up with me, and with them! I didn’t want these men to die because of me, so I told them to just throw me into the sea. (Jonah 1:12). These pagan crewmen were kind and instead of doing what I asked they tried to steer the ship ashore so they could just get me off the ship onto dry land. (Jonah 1:13). But GOD wasn’t having it! As the saying goes, “Sometimes when you make your bed, you have to lie in it.” In other words, I wanted a sea journey, so I was getting a sea journey---and everything that came with it!”