Introduction and Commission of the Prophet

Review of the Book of Jonah's Uniqueness and Purpose

0:02 Will you give attention to the reading of the Word of God as we come to this, our second meditation in the book of Jonah? The first portion is found in 2 Kings chapter 14, 2 Kings chapter 14, verses 23 through 27. 2 Kings 14, verses 23 through 27.

0:31 In the fifteenth year of Amaziah the son of Joash, king of Judah, Jeroboam the son of Joash, king of Israel, began to reign in Samaria, that is, in the northern kingdom, and reigned forty and one years. And he did that which was evil in the sight of the Lord. He departed not from all the sins of Jeroboam the son of Nebat, wherewith he made Israel to sin.

1:05 He restored the border of Israel from the entrance of Hamath unto the sea of the Arabah, according to the word of the Lord the God of Israel, which he spake by his servant Jonah, the son of Amittai the prophet, who was of Gath-Hefer. For the Lord saw the affliction of Israel, that it was very bitter, for there was none shut up nor left at large, neither was there any helper for Israel.

1:35 And the Lord said not that he would blot out the name of Israel from under heaven, but he saved them by the hand of Jeroboam the son of Joash. And then to the book of Jonah itself, verses 1 and 2. Now the word of the Lord came unto Jonah the son of Amittai, saying, Arise, go to Nineveh that great city, and cry against it, for their wickedness is come.

2:07 Now the word of the Lord came unto Jonah the son of Amittai, saying, Arise, go to Nineveh that great city, and cry against it, for their wickedness is come.

2:40 Now the word of the Lord came unto Jonah the son of Amittai, saying, Arise, go to Nineveh that great city, and cry against it, for their wickedness is come. Actual events impinging upon the life of a real man in real history. And then I addressed your attention to what I call the uniqueness of the book of Jonah.

3:22 It's unique in many ways, but perhaps its most singular uniqueness is to be found in the fact that the message in the book of Jonah is not in any recorded sermons of the prophet, but the message is in God's dealings with the man himself. And unlike any of the other prophetic books, which though many of them contain some narrative, have as the fundamental thrust of their message the embodiment of that message in what was preached by the prophet,

3:54 here the book of Jonah comes as a prophetic utterance, not in a distillation of the sermons of the prophet, but in this detailed account of God's dealings with the man. And that brought us then very naturally. In the third place, to the fundamental purpose or purposes of the book of Jonah. And I suggested that the purposes are both didactic, that is, they are intended to convey moral lessons, and they are prophetic.

4:25 And of course, the primary moral lesson of this book was that of a rebuke and an exposure of Israel's narrowness of heart. This book is intended to demonstrate that the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, is indeed the God of the whole earth, that his heart is indeed larger than Israel. And he does this not only by commissioning Jonah to go and preach a message which under the blessing of his spirit would result in the conversion of the Ninevites, but in this man Jonah himself is the embodiment of this carnal spirit of Israel which God is exposing for the terrible, sinful attitude,

5:10 that it is. And then another matter that I just briefly touched upon in passing, that is no little part of the didactic purpose of the book, there is a principle that is enunciated in the book of Deuteronomy, it comes through into the prophets, and it is climaxed in Romans 9 through 11, that in the economy of grace, God often uses jealousy as a motive subservient to the purposes of his grace. And God had said, through Moses, that he would provoke the nation of Israel to jealousy with a nation that was no nation.

5:46 And here is God shows mercy to the Ninevites, who upon the heels of one message, from one messenger, fall down in brokenness. God shows up the hardness of the hearts of the Israelites, who had had many messengers bring many messages, while yet continuing in impenitence. And God does this in a calculated way. To provoke his own people to jealousy, that they might turn from their sins.

6:16 Then of course, there will be many, many other secondary and tertiary lessons that flow out of the book, because it comes within the compass of God's statement in 2 Timothy, that all scripture is profitable for doctrine, reproof, correction, and instruction in righteousness. And then of course, it's great prophetic purpose is to foreshadow, that great prophetic purpose is to foreshadow, that great prophetic purpose is to foreshadow, that great prophetic purpose is to foreshadow, that great prophetic purpose is to foreshadow, later than Jonas, as he is called in the New Testament. Who through the ordeal of death and resurrection, becomes a herald to the Gentiles, becomes the final sign to Israel, And our Lord is recorded in no fewer than three instances in the gospel records,

6:59 as referring to God's dealings with Jonah, as a divinely ordered prefigurement of his own death and resurrection. And then we concluded by suggesting a workable outline of the book. Chapter 1, we find the prophet running. Chapter 2, the prophet praying. Chapter 3, the prophet preaching. Chapter 4, the prophet pouting.

Introduction to the Prophet Jonah (Jonah 1:1)

7:24 Now then, we come this evening to verses 1 and 2 of the book itself. Verses 1 and 2 of chapter 1. Verse 1, we are introduced to this strange character, Jonah. Now the word of the Lord came unto Jonah, the son of Amittai, saying, and after this introduction to the man, we are then given an account of the commission of the prophet Jonah.

7:53 Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and cry against it, for their wickedness is come up before me. So tonight we shall cover, God willing, these two verses. The introduction. The introduction of the prophet Jonah, verse 1, and the commission of the prophet Jonah in verse 2.

8:17 Now who was this man, Jonah? Where did he live? Out of what historical situation did he think and minister? Well, very much like Elijah, who is, as it were, thrown before us in the record.

8:38 Elijah the Tishbite appears before us. He appears before Ahab, and his message is delivered. No introduction. Well, in a very similar way, Jonah is, as it were, simply thrust upon us with very little introduction.

8:52 You'll remember, if you have any acquaintance with the way in which the books of the prophets come to us, that almost invariably, the opening statement in any prophetic book, major or minor prophet, gives you some very significant information. About the times in which the prophet lived. For instance, look to the next book, beyond Jonah, one of the minor prophets.

9:19 The word of the Lord, the book of Micah, the word of the Lord that came to Micah, the Morashtite, in the days of Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah, which he saw concerning Samaria and Jerusalem. Now you see what that does? By comparing the record in the book of Kings and Chronicles, we can read concerning the days of the kings of these kings listed, Jotham, Ahaz, Hezekiah, and we then can feel something of the historical situation into which the prophet Micah ministered.

10:02 Furthermore, we are told that he preached not only to the northern tribes, Samaria, but also... Well, similar language is found in the major prophets as well.

10:17 For example, in Isaiah, chapter 1, in verse 1, we read, The vision of Isaiah, the son of Amoz, which he saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem. In other words, his main burden was not the northern tribes, but the southern tribes, Judah and Jerusalem, when? In the days of Uzziah? Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah.

10:44 Now when you read that, don't just glance over that. You don't need anything other than a concordance, or if you have, a 1901 edition, your center column reference, and you'll find the places in Kings and Chronicles where you can read about the reigns of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, Hezekiah, and as you read what happened in those days, then you turn to the prophet, and it's amazing how his message will often break open with tremendous clarity as you read it in the historical situation. For you must never forget, prophets did not simply appear willy-nilly upon the scene of Israel's history.

11:28 The presence of the prophet was the continual monument of the loving kindness of Jehovah, God of Israel. He is watching over...

11:38 He is watching over this nation into which he has entered in sovereign and gracious covenant relationships. And you remember that one of the indictments he brings again and again, he brings in these words, I sent unto you the prophets, rising early and late. Every prophet who appears is a fresh monument of the loving kindness of Jehovah. And so he sends the prophet at a precise time in Israel, in Israel's history when the prophet is desperately needed.

12:12 Furthermore, he sends him with that precise message which is most specifically needed at that specific time in the history of Israel. So you must not gloss over these opening words of the prophets as though they're just some kind of filler. They have profound significance in understanding the message of the prophet. But now we have a problem.

12:37 Jonah simply seems to be thrust upon us. We cannot locate him with any degree of certainty, except to say that he obviously lived before the destruction of Nineveh. If all we had was the material of the book of the prophet Jonah and nothing more, it would be most difficult to arrive at some of the background of Jonah's ministry, which in a very profound way, influenced this strange and fascinating man. But God, in his mercy, has given us the paragraph that I read at the beginning of our study tonight.

13:17 And that little paragraph becomes, as it were, a key in introducing to us the prophet Jonah. Who was this man Jonah? From what part of Israel did he come? What influences were impinging upon his mind?

13:35 Forming and molding him into the man that he was, both as to his strengths and as to his weaknesses? Well, let us turn to that passage in 2 Kings, for an answer to at least some of those questions. Remember now, all we're attempting to do is to absorb everything Scripture has given to us by way of introducing to us the prophet Jonah. Now at this point,

Historical Context from 2 Kings 14:23-27

14:10 you must have an awareness of a little bit of the history of Israel. Now I'm going to give you a thumbnail sketch in about 65 seconds. Most of you remember and know enough of the Bible to recall that under King Saul and King David, the nation of Israel grew to tremendous influence in the land of Canaan. God was with the armies of Israel and they dispossessed the enemies and drove out the Canaanites and possessed the land.

14:42 And then, of course, the kingdom reached its fullest extent under the reign of King Solomon. But towards the end of Solomon's reign, Solomon becomes an idolater. He loves many women and his wives turn away his heart from Jehovah. And if you read 1 Kings 11, you will read the account of how God, as a judgment upon Solomon for his idolatry, says, I will now cause the kingdom to be rent.

15:11 And so this man, Jeroboam the first, will be the king of the ten northern tribes. If you picture Judah lying this way, roughly in the shape of a rectangle, the ten northern tribes will henceforth be referred to as Israel or Samaria, which was the capital of those ten northern tribes. And then the two southern tribes will be called Judah or, because Jerusalem was called Judah, because Jerusalem was the center, may be referred to simply as Jerusalem. So from that point on in the history of Israel, you have these concurrent kings.

15:47 You will hear so-and-so was made king in Israel at the time that so-and-so had been reigning ten years in Judah. So-and-so was made king in Judah when so-and-so was so many years king in Israel. Well, that's all it's doing is describing the concurrent kingships of the kings of the northern tribes and of the southern tribes. Well, for a number of reasons which I will not go into, the northern tribes progressed in degeneracy quicker than the southern tribes.

16:17 And as a judgment of God upon the northern tribes, God said that they would go into captivity first and then later on, of course, the southern tribes went into captivity as well. Well, God did an amazing thing just subsequent to the time of Jonah's appearance upon the scene. For we read now in this passage in 2 Kings and chapter 14 something of this amazingly gracious act of God towards the northern kingdom. In the fifteenth year of Amaziah the son of Joash king of Judah, see, that's down south,

16:59 Jeroboam, now this is Jeroboam II, the son of Joash king of Israel, began to reign in Samaria. That is, in the northern kingdoms. And he reigned forty and one years. Now notice what it says about his character.

17:14 He did that which was evil in the sight of the Lord. He departed not from all the sins of Jeroboam, that is, Jeroboam I, the son of Nebat, wherewith he made Israel to sin. And that great sin was idolatry, setting up a separate place of worship which became the very seedbed of an entire system of idolatrous worship. So here is this wicked king reigning in the north.

17:41 But in spite of his wickedness God did a strange thing. Usually a wicked king would bring in the train of his wickedness a singular judgment of God. Then God would raise up a righteous king whom God would honor and then he would bring blessing upon the nation again. But in the midst of the wickedness of Jeroboam II, God did a strange thing.

18:04 He restored the border of Israel. He brought expansion. And the repossession of lands lost as a result of previous judgments. He restored the border of Israel from the entrance of Hamath unto the sea of Araba.

18:21 That is, he brought her to a place of influence that she had never known from the time of Solomon. Under Jeroboam II, the kingdom, the northern kingdom, reaches out. Reaches out and extends in directions never possessed from the time of Solomon. Now, why did this happen?

18:44 Well, we have two reasons given. According to the word of Jehovah the God of Israel, which he spoke by his servant Jonah, the son of Amittai the prophet, who was of Gath Hefer, a place near what we would now call Nazareth, or Nazareth in Bible days, for this was done to fulfill a prophecy that was given by the prophet Jonah, the same prophet of our book Jonah. And God did this because he saw the affliction of Israel and the Lord being committed in covenant faithfulness came with this unusually gracious disposition. At the time when Israel deserved judgment,

19:29 God brought mercy. And he did so in faith, in the fulfillment of the word of the prophet Jonah. Now, the indication is, you see, that Jonah, like every other prophet, was standing at that point in Israel's history, midway between the division of the kingdom under Jeroboam, Elijah and Elisha have already gone before him, and then this wickedness under Jeroboam II, and no doubt he was calling out for repentance, no doubt he was crying out to the people of God to own their sins and to turn from their sins. But instead of saying, and God will bring judgment upon you, he utters this amazing prophecy

20:14 that God will restore the borders of Israel back to those tremendous dimensions that were known under the reign of Solomon. And to magnify his grace, God does it in the days of a wicked king. Now, I want to say by way of passing, it has nothing to do with the message, but I cannot, I cannot pass it over without mentioning this. Don't any of you ever grow comfortable that you must be right with God because God uses you to extend his kingdom.

20:49 This was a wicked man through whom God extended the borders of Israel. And God can take wicked men in the ministry and through them extend the borders of Israel. The borders of the kingdom of his own dear son. Usefulness in kingdom work is no proof of grace in the heart.

21:15 And never forget that, you who either aspire to the work of the ministry or are presently engaged in the work of the ministry. Well, Jonah then is called upon to give this amazing prediction and whether he actually lives to see this come to pass, whether he is actively ministering, this much we know. Jonah, by virtue of the only prophecy given to Israel that is left on record, had an unusual acquaintance with what attribute of God? The unspeakable, amazing mercy of God to the ill deserving.

21:59 Do you see it? When the nation in its sin is crying for judgment, God promises mercy. So this man Jonah has in his own experience this first hand acquaintance with the largeness of the mercy of God to the ill deserving. Now I say that becomes as it were a key to unlock the book of Jonah.

22:32 For as the prophet is introduced to us in the book of Jonah itself, we find that he is brought before us with no previous acquaintance, with no previous introduction, simply Jonah is commissioned by the living God. But I trust you now see that Jonah was not brought to his commission without an unusual preparation for that commission. He is being sent on a mission which has inherent in it an unusual display of divine compassion and mercy.

23:14 But he is not unprepared for that mission for God has given him that previous revelation in the prophecy delivered with respect to the northern kingdom. Furthermore, it is obvious from 2 Kings 14 that he was an Israelite. That he shared in the life of the ten northern tribes. And there is much to indicate that even though he was a prophet, he had absorbed some of the mentality of his fellow countrymen.

Jonah's Acquaintance with God's Mercy and Israel's Carnal Spirit

23:50 Now follow closely. I know this background material may sound tedious, but it isn't. And God has put this information in other parts of the word for our prophet. When Israel was in a spiritual state, she had no problem with the thought that God would show mercy to the Gentiles.

24:11 For the promise of God to Abraham was that in thee and in thy seed shall all the nations be blessed. And when Israel was living in a sense of its own unworthiness, basking as it were in the light of God's sovereign mercy to her as a people, it was no problem to think of the God who could show mercy to such a people also showing mercy to the heathen nations. Therefore, in the Psalms, those Psalms written in periods when the nation or individuals within the nation were dwelling and basking

24:53 in the light of God's grace to them, they speak of this world- encompassing heart of Jehovah. The 67th Psalm is an example. Bless us! Why?

25:05 That thy way may be known upon the earth, and thy salvation among all the nations. The second Psalm asks of me, and I will give thee the nations for thine inheritance, and the uttermost part of the earth for thy possession. But follow closely. Whenever Israel degenerated into idolatry and sin, she also degenerated into this carnal spirit that we are God's favorites.

25:38 And whenever she was carnally enmeshed in sin and idolatry, she was also enmeshed in this narrowness of heart that regarded those nations of the Gentiles as the dogs who were not even the fit subjects of the mercy of God. Now you see, Israel's state at the time of Jonah's ministry was a state of declension. When Israel is reflecting not that largeness of heart which she had when she stands amazed at God's grace, but that narrowness of heart which she has whenever

26:21 she fails to remember that she is Israel only because of God's grace. Now before we move away from this brief introduction to the prophet Jonah, I want to say something by way of application. It's already been intimated. We ought all to learn from this that none of us is immune and insulated from the religious climate in which we live and move and have our being.

26:54 Here is a man of God given a direct call from God, given singular blessings from God, and yet he is infected with the spirit of the age in which he lives. And this should cause each of us to be watchful and prayerful, continually pleading with God to expose to us those subtle inroads of the carnal standards in which we must live and move. And furthermore, it should cause us to pray that God would help us to be watchful with respect to our influence upon others.

27:37 We have no neutral influence upon those with whom we rub shoulders. Either rivers of living water flow out to refresh us, or polluted streams flow out to defile us. And here we see this strange man, Jonah, and what a mixture he is. In some areas a man that we well could emulate and feel that we are unworthy to loose the shoes from his feet, and we can pray, Lord, make me like Jonah insofar as he is like Christ.

28:10 But in other areas we see reflected in Jonah some of the most narrow, abominable carnality, and it should cause us to be watchful and to pray, lest we too fall into temptation. Well, so much then for the introduction of this prophet. The word of the Lord comes to Jonah, this Jonah who is the son of Amittai, this Jonah of Gath, Hefer. Now we move then in verse 2 to consider the commission of this man, Jonah.

The City of Nineveh: Its Greatness (Jonah 1:2)

28:52 As one commentator has indicated, it is a sovereign and it is a righteous commission. First of all, we have in the commission the city to which Jonah is to preach. Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city. Nineveh was the capital city of Assyria.

29:21 Assyria was the nation being raised by God to become a scourge to sinning Israel. It would be Assyria that would take the ten northern tribes into captivity. And it is called a great city. And when one begins to read the Bible dictionaries, and those who have given themselves to tracking down the details of ancient places and cities, he realizes that this is no exaggeration.

29:48 When Nineveh was called that great city, it was great in many ways. First of all, it was great in geographical size. Whether the term Nineveh has reference to what we would call the city proper or to the city and what we would call its suburbs, it was great in geographical size. Archaeologists tell us greater than Babylon in the height of its glory.

30:15 It was a city of three days' journey. It took three days to encompass the whole probably of the city proper and its immediate suburbs. Not only was it great in geographical size, it was great in population. Remember the book closes with God declaring His compassion upon a city in which there are more than six score thousand persons that cannot discern between right and left hand.

30:46 A hundred and twenty thousand infants. Well, by various calculations, you arrive at a figure of the total population that was at a minimum three quarters to a million people and at a maximum probably two million people. This was a great city. Not only great in geographical size, but great in its population.

31:08 Furthermore, we are told it was great in its structure. It's reported by secular historians that its walls were a hundred feet tall. A hundred feet high. And that at the top of those walls, three or four chariots could run abreast.

31:26 They were that wide. This ceiling is probably about thirty, about thirty-five feet high. Imagine a wall three times the height of this ceiling. Now you get something of the meaning of these words.

31:42 That great city just coming up and seeing that thing break into view. The tremendously imposing structure of these walls. Furthermore, we are told that around those walls there were some fifteen hundred towers. And the towers would go up double the height of the wall.

32:01 They would go up to two hundred feet. So that there could be watchmen who could see for miles and announce the approaching of any foreign army. Furthermore, it was not only a great city in size, population, and structure, but great in its influence. It was the capital of the mighty warlike cruel nation of Assyria.

32:22 This city Nineveh was the seat of government and the dwelling place of its kings. In a way that is not even true of modern cities that are considered to be, as it were, the center of the life of any given country or nation. It was in some way what Moscow is to Russia, and Peking to China, and New York and Chicago to our own country, and Buenos Aires to Brazil, and Delhi to India. Well, you get something of the feeling then when God says to Jonah, Arise, go to that great city.

33:00 It is doubtful that Jonah had ever had occasion to be there. All he knew was what he had heard of that great and mighty city. Now then, look at the nature of the commission. The city to which he is to preach is Nineveh.

The Sovereign Commission to Nineveh (Jonah 1:2)

33:20 Now the commission itself is, as one man has suggested, a sovereign commission. With no previous explanation, with no previous preparation in terms of vision or dialogue with the prophet, God says with an abruptness, with an economy of words that is striking, Get up, Jonah! Go to Nineveh and cry against it. And here we have a vigorous expression of the sovereignty of Israel's king.

33:55 Can you not feel something of the vigorous, authoritative, regal authority in this commission? Here is the king of Israel speaking to one of his subjects and saying, Rise up! Go to Nineveh! Cry against it.

34:12 Here is God exercising His royal prerogatives. Now notice the contrast. When God was preparing Isaiah, for his strange mission, He prepared him with an unusual vision. Remember what his mission was going to be.

34:29 Preach to them, and preach to them, and in your preaching you will make their eyes heavy and their ears dull of hearing and their hearts hard. What a commission! What a terrible commission to be an instrument of judicial hardening. But God prepared him with that special vision.

34:48 In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord high and lifted up, sitting upon a throne, and He has this shattering vision of God in His enthroned majesty and holiness, so that His Spirit is prepared for the difficult commission. Then when God says, Go, He is able to say, Here am I, Lord, send me. He is prepared. You read in Jeremiah 1, Jeremiah is to have a difficult mission, but God prepares him, not by this lofty vision, but by an intimate dialogue Jeremiah says, I am just a kid.

35:21 God says, Don't worry about that. That is not my concern. And God talks with him familiarly, in a wonderfully intimate way, until he breaks down some of the resistance in Jeremiah, and then He gives him that promise, and He gives him two brief visions to encourage him. But you don't find anything like that for poor Jonah.

35:34 And here he is called upon to do something no other prophet was ever called upon to do. No other prophet was ever called upon to do anything like that. He was called upon to do something that no other prophet was ever called upon to do. No other prophet was ever called upon to do anything like that.

35:49 No other prophet had ever been called upon to leave the borders of Israel and to prophesy outside the precincts of the nation of God. Now there was some influence, yes, you had the Gentile widow whom the prophet Elijah influenced, yes, but there was no official pronouncement as a mouthpiece of God. It is something entirely unique in the entirety of redemptive history. He couldn't look back and find anything like that.

36:15 He was called upon to do something no other prophet was ever called upon to do anything like that. He couldn't look back and find any precedent. Here God says, arise, go to Nineveh, leave the borders of Israel, go to the citadel of Gentile warlike power, the center of Gentile authority and pagan life and worship and there preach in my name. Now what is this but an exercise of sovereign prerogatives on the part of Jehovah who calls upon his servant to perform a task that is not a task for which he gives

36:59 him no special preparation in terms of an immediate vision or discourse with him for which there is no precedent in redemptive history. What is God saying? He's saying, Jonah, I'm God and I maintain the rights to exercise my Godhead as I will. Get up!

37:25 Go to Nineveh! That's your task. Well, before we pass on to look at the next chapter we'll talk about the God of Jonah. Now, I want to say that the God of Jonah is our God as well.

37:43 And to this day he does according to his will in the armies of heaven and among the inhabitants of the earth. And he has and exercises the unquestionable right to command and ours is but one

38:06 of the best crops on earth. In all the plentitude of his sovereign rights, when he speaks in the humble, ordinary way of scriptural statements, as when he spoke in the more spectacular or direct way of that revelation that he gives to a prophet.

38:49 And in the language of Mary to the servants at the wedding feast, whatsoever he saith unto you, do it. And if you look over your shoulder and say, but I don't know anyone else who has ever, that's not the issue. Jonah could look over his shoulder and say, but God, this is unheard of. The prophet goes from Israel to a heathen nation.

39:13 This is something for which there is no precedent. God would answer and say, who makes the precedent?

39:19 I'm the Lord of history. I'm the Lord of the nation. I'm the Lord of the prophets. I make the precedents.

39:25 I'm free to make them and to break them according to my own sovereignty. Sovereign will. And it could well be that God is bearing down by the Spirit through the Word upon the consciences of some of you in this place tonight. He's pressing biblical duties upon you, which perhaps for too long you have sought to evade and you've tried to put them out of mind.

39:49 But it seems everywhere you turn in your own devotional reading, in Sunday school, in the preaching, God is saying, arise, go to your Nineveh. God is bearing down upon you. Your conscience in the exercise of sovereign prerogatives. And you say, but God, no other young person has done this.

40:07 But God, no other man. But God, no other. God says, what is that to thee? Follow thou me.

40:13 Whatsoever he saith unto you, do it. The God of Jonah is our God. We who are the people of God are the new Israel. Jehovah Jesus has the claims of a king over us as we saw.

God's Impatience for Mercy and Our Missionary Responsibility

40:30 Jehovah Jesus has the claims of a king over us as we saw. Jehovah Jesus has the claims of a king over us as we saw. And when he speaks, it is ours to obey. And may I bring a second line of application as it touches more directly upon the whole thrust of the book of Jonah.

40:45 This sovereign command reflects, as it were, if I may say it without being irreverent, almost an impatience on God's part to warn Nineveh to the end that he might show mercy upon that wicked city. God is almost. He is almost impatient. So he doesn't fool around with words.

41:06 He says, Jonah, get up and get it. Go to Nineveh. Well, the subsequent history shows us why. His heart is pregnant with mercy to that wicked nation.

41:17 But he's the God who works by means. And he will not confer the mercy until there's repentance. And he will not bring repentance in a vacuum. It will come by the preaching of the word.

41:27 And when God speaks with the impatience of a heart pregnant with mercy, what a shame when the people of God drag their feet. Why do we exist as a congregation? We exist that through us his way may be known upon the earth and his salvation among all the nations. And when God in the ordinary means by the Spirit through the word, as he evidences the impartation of gifts and graces, calls upon us, this one and that one, to go and to preach to this Nineveh and to that Nineveh, calls us to leave.

42:06 Friends. Friends and loved ones and intimate associations that we might reflect the largeness of God's heart. Oh, may God grant that we shall not be found as Jonah who balk at the sovereign prerogatives of God.

42:24 If any of you thinks I look forward, any of you think that I look forward to spending two weeks halfway around the world in the month of May among strange people an eight or nine hour time change, preaching three times a day and counseling all the waking hours in between, away from my dear wife, away from my children, away from my fellow elders, away from the flock of God in which I feel comfortable, in which I can take my coat off and not wonder if I'm going to offend anyone, and a thousand other precious little intimacies. If anyone thinks that that's a delightful mission, he has no idea of the trauma of soul through which I go as such a time approaches.

43:08 But when God has made it plain that the interests of the Gospel in our generation demand that I go, I'd be unworthy of the name of servant of Christ. If I were to do anything other than go. Oh, you see the implications of the sovereignty of this command reach out in so many directions, but we must hasten on to consider in the second place that it was a righteous commission, not only a sovereign commission, but a righteous commission. Jonah is called upon to do what?

The Righteous Commission: Nineveh's Wickedness Known to God (Jonah 1:2)

43:45 Go to that city and cry against it for their wickedness is come up before me. Jonah, though I'm calling upon you to do a strange and unheard of thing, though I'm exercising sovereign prerogatives in a very abrupt manner, I am not calling upon you to do any of these things. I'm not calling upon you to do anything that is unrighteous. I'm calling upon you to cry against that city because it is a city that is worthy to have someone cry against it.

44:26 And the righteousness of the commission is stamped upon the very face of the language of the portion that I've read in your hearing. Notice the parallel language in Genesis 18 and verse 28. Verse 21, seeking to follow the rule that Scripture is its own best interpreter. And though similarity of language does not always mean similarity of meaning, it often does.

44:59 And here we read in Genesis 18, 21, God's dealings with respect to Sodom and Gomorrah. Back up to verse 20. And the Lord said, Because the cry of Sodom and Gomorrah is great, and because their sin is great, and because their sin is very grievous, I will go down now and see whether they have done altogether according to the cry of it, which is come unto me. God says the cry of that city and its wickedness comes up before me pleading that justice and judgment be shown in answer

45:43 to the abominable iniquity that is being practiced. So Jonah is given a righteous commission, a commission rooted in the reality of the abounding wickedness, which though unknown perhaps to Jonah is fully known to the living God. Now this is a great principle of the Word of God because, or a principle that needs to be underscored, because men in their sin are continually trying to convince themselves that their sin rises no higher than the top of the mountain. They can't convince themselves it doesn't rise that high because they have this little

46:25 man conscience with which they have to contend. Conscience is ever reminding them that their sin is a reality. But they like to convince themselves it's only a reality to themselves and not to God. For instance, in the fiftieth Psalm we read these words, Psalm 50, verse 16, But unto the wicked God saith, He is speaking to the wicked, and He is describing the mentality and the attitudes of the wicked.

46:58 Now notice what one of those attitudes is. Verse 21, These things thou hast done, and I kept silence. Thou thoughtest that I was altogether such an one as thyself, but I will reprove thee and set them in order before thine eyes. You see what God is saying?

47:24 Because your sin is committed, and I do not immediately send singular judgments, you think that I am like you are. You do things and then forget them. You have lapses of memory. You think that your sin is not there before me in all of its livid ugliness, crying for my judgment.

47:42 But He said, that's not so. And He said, I'll show you that it's not so when I reprove you and set them in order before your very eyes. And now He says, Consider this ye that forget God. God, lest I tear you in pieces and there be none to deliver.

48:02 God is saying to Jonah, Jonah, as the righteous God of Israel, I am the God of the whole earth. And the creatures who live in that great walled city, though they are outside the pale of the covenant relationships which Israel has, they are not outside the pale of accountability to me as the God of the whole earth. And as the moral governor of the universe, I am as intimately concerned and as fully acquainted with every deed of every Ninevite as I am concerning every deed of every Israelite.

48:44 For when God enters into peculiar covenant relationships with certain people, He does not cut Himself off from His relationship to every creature as the moral governor of the entire universe. And so the covenant of the universe is the covenant of God. So the commission reflects this great reality, that as the creator of the Ninevites, He is the moral judge of the Ninevites. And as the moral judge, He has viewed the increasing tide of iniquity until He says, Enough is enough.

49:23 And they have filled up the measure of their iniquity. It will either now be mercy or it will be judgment. Rise up, Jonah. Go to that city.

49:32 Cry against it. Let your cries be reflective of my knowledge and my disposition. And as the righteous God, I know their sin. As the righteous God, I am perturbed and angered by their sin.

Application: God's Knowledge of Our Sin and the Call to Repentance

49:53 Well, of course, the application of this again is so obvious. I trust you don't feel insulted in my pausing to focus upon it. The righteous God who gave this commission to Jonah is the God with whom you and I have to do. He is the God who in this place tonight is as fully cognizant of all your sins as He was of the Ninevites' sin.

50:24 And I have no doubt that I am speaking to people this night who are like those in Psalm 50. Because your sin has been committed, sins against conscience, sins against light, sins against privilege, sins against the restraints. The restraints of loving wives and husbands and fathers and mothers. And no singular judgments have fallen upon your impenitent head.

50:48 You think that God is altogether such as you are. He has lapses of memory. My friend, I announce to you tonight what the words of Jonah would bring to the ears of every Ninevite when he would cry later on after the ordeal of that death, as it were, in the belly of the great fish. That typical resurrection from which he would go and preach and cry, Ninevites shall be overthrown.

51:15 The Ninevites who had almost convinced themselves, Jehovah is a tribal God. He belongs down there in Israel. He is the God of those Hebrews. But we can live as we please.

51:26 We can do our own thing. And look at our might. Look at our growth. Look at our military success.

51:31 Look at our walls. Look at our society. Look at our culture. And God, with just one word, says, I am the God of Israel.

51:35 I am the God of Israel. I am the God of Israel. I am the God of Israel. One word from one prophet says, No your sins have come up before me and if the time for judgment is ripe I will bring you to the earth.

51:47 I will humble you. Later on, as was prophesied through a subsequent prophet, some sixty years after this repentance of the Ninevites recorded in Jonah, God stripped that city of all its glory and laid it in the dust as a monument of His righteous anger against impenitence and power, and the great in sinners. My friend, that's the God of the Bible. You see how mercy and judgment are mingled in the book of Jonah? Here's Jonah with his little narrow heart who thinks God's

52:22 concern doesn't leap beyond the borders of Israel, and God says, no, my heart's larger than that. And I'm going to demonstrate it in this singular way. So determined am I to bring a message of judgment that under my blessing will lead to repentance and the conferral of mercy, that I'll prepare a great fish, I'll preserve you in the fish, I'll cause the fish to vomit you out, I'll work in your spirit a spirit of willingness to obey the commission you once disobeyed. The God who is so full of mercy as manifested in all of those facts is the God who is also full of righteous anger against the sins of men. And

53:02 I say, my friend, if you feel comfortable with a God who is nothing but mercy, all mercy, mercy from beginning to end, you're comfortable as you snuggle up to an idol who is the figment of your own imagination. Our God is a consuming fire. And this has a very profound word to us as a nation. The pride of America must sicken God. Our might, our walls, our culture,

53:39 our accomplishments. Day after day, the sin comes up to God, crying for judgment. You say you've got a hobby, praying all the time about the blood of innocents slain in wounds. My friend, that's a good hobby to have. I can't feel comfortable knowing as

54:00 I preach tonight, unborn babies are being slain in the clean, staff-operating rooms of the metropolitan area. As I lay upon that operating table two weeks ago, I thought on this very table, murder has been committed in the name of women's liberation. And I'm not a woman. I'm a Christian. And I said, oh God, how long? How long? And all the goodness

54:31 of God in granting the blessings of advanced medical science is brought into the service of sale murder in order to accommodate unbounded lust. Oh, dear children of God, every one of us has a warrant not to go in the official capacity of a prophet, but in the sense that in union with Christ, we can do the work of the Lord. And I said, oh God, how long? And We are all proclaimers of the Word.

55:08 And say to the Nineveh of our own nation, to our neighbors and friends and associates, that their sins are known of God. And they come up before God and they will precipitate the judgment of Almighty God.

55:26 That will make you the most popular person on the block or in the shop or in the school. But it's the truth.

55:34 And who knows but what God will own the pronouncement of judgment to humble hearts and bring them to the feet of a God whose heart is also large with designs of mercy. I thought Pastor Fisher opened that up so clearly to us this morning. When Paul impelled with compassion and longing to see men become true worshippers goes to Athens, his sermon bristled with negatives. It bristled with judgment.

56:06 And people say, we want a message of love, my friend. You don't love a man to tell him all is well when Almighty God is within a hair's breadth of crushing him into hell.

56:18 If you love him, tell him he's a hair's breadth from feeling the wrath of the Almighty. And say with John, who hath warned you to flee from the wrath to come, if no one else has, I shall. His fan is in his hand. He'll thoroughly purge his floor.

56:38 You better be wheat or you'll be chaff burned up with unquenchable fire. That's the way the Bible comes to men. There is a righteousness in this commission that is a beautiful reflection of the great commission in which we're called upon to proclaim he that believeth shall be saved, he that believeth not shall be damned.

Motives for Missionary Responsibility: God's Largeness of Heart and Righteousness

57:04 And then my final application has to do with the work of the gospel again. And that's why I love this book because it's a wonderful way to teach gospel responsibility and missionary responsibility. What are to be the motives that move us to pray that the Lord of the harvest will send forth his present day Jonas to take the gospel to our present day Ninevehs. My friends, it must not only be the thought of the largeness of God's heart, but this thought of the righteousness of the commission.

57:39 It is right that God should proclaim to sinners if they will not turn, they will burn. If they will not turn, they will burn. If they will not turn, they will burn. If they will not turn, they will burn.

57:44 If they will not turn, they will burn. If they will not turn, they will burn. If they will not turn, they will burn. If they will not turn, they will burn.

57:44 If they will not turn, they will burn. If they will not turn, they will burn. will not repent, they will perish. And if we have any love for the righteousness of God, then we cannot be silent in the proclamation or in the desire, indifferent in desire to the proclamation of that message. And those of us who are called upon to proclaim it will

58:03 not be embarrassed to say, your sins cry out to the God of heaven, turn or burn, repent or perish. So then we've been introduced to this strange man tonight, this man Jonah, the son of Amittai of Gath Hever, whose only other prophecy is one of mercy to the ill deserving, who should have had by means of that an unusual preparation for his unusual mission, but who in spite of all of that, when he is given this expression of God's sovereignty and righteousness.

Conclusion: God's Dealings with Jonah and Personal Application

58:44 As we shall see in our study next Lord's Day, he disobeys the clear commission of God and then enters into that intriguing succession of events, which will ultimately result in God winning the day and subduing the disobedient prophet to the end that his own purposes of mercy will be realized. Now what is all of this to you? Is it an interesting and fascinating story? Or do you see in the history of the world that there is no God? Or do you see in the history of the world

59:13 that there is no God? Or do you see in the history of the world that there is no God? Or do you see in the history of Jonah the dealings of God with you? What is God saying to you tonight? My friend, whatever he is saying, he says it is God. Whether he speaks

59:24 to you as an unconverted person saying, repent and believe the gospel, that is your word from God. Arise, go to Nineveh. Arise, flee to Christ.

59:38 And your indifference to that gracious gospel command is regarded by the God of heaven as high-handed treason and rebellion. And rebellion, that is why he says, he that believeth not shall be damned. You are not to be pitied in your unbelief, you are to be blamed. You are not to be pitied, you are to be blamed. Your unbelief is blameworthy and provokes the judgment of God. What is

60:04 he saying to you, Christian? What is that point of duty that God has been pressing, pressing, pressing, pressing? Oh my friend, it is God who is pressing. Sovereign Jehovah who presses. Jehovah.

60:21 Jesus, who died, that he might claim you as his own by right of redemption as well as creation. Oh, my friend, bow to the claims of this sovereign Jehovah. Don't be like a Jonah who runs, but bow and find the fulfillment of our Lord's own word. He that hath my commandments and keepeth them, I will manifest myself to him.

60:55 The greatest reward of obedience is the realized presence of Jesus.

61:03 That's the greatest reward of obedience, the realized presence of Jesus. With that, you can face a Nineveh with hundred foot high walls. Without that, you can't face a two foot high picket fence, but what you'll cower before it. Oh, may God grant that at any cost, we shall have that realization.

61:31 The realized presence promised to those who obey this sovereign God. Let us pray.

Closing Prayer

61:47 Our Father, we thank you again this night that we have the scriptures, this blessed lamp unto our feet and light to our pathway.

62:01 And we pray as we have contemplated you as the God who gives account to no one for his ways and actions, that you would grant to us to feel and to own. Our creatureliness, to sense something of the irrationality as well as the wickedness of ever questioning you, of rendering anything less than implicit immediate obedience.

62:30 Lord, seal the word to our hearts. Particularly do we pray this night for those who, like the citizens of Nineveh, feel that their sins rise no higher than their own heads. Oh, may the thought trouble them tonight. That their sins have come up before you.

62:51 That those sins cry to heaven for judgment. And oh, may they become desperate to find that only refuge which you have appointed for sinners. Even the Lord Jesus Christ. And may they in the language of the writer to the Hebrews, flee for refuge in Jesus Christ.

63:12 Oh, our God, we thank you for this day. We thank you for your presence. We thank you for your presence in the midst of your gathered people. Thank you for the delight of seeing one another.

63:24 And above all, the sheer joy of knowing you to be near. Now we lovingly commend one another to you and the concerns of this body of your people. We pray that you would continue to grace our gatherings with your presence. Grace our lives with your power and with increasing measures of sanctifying grace.

63:49 Help us in each sphere of legitimate responsibility during the coming week to be light and salt. And to be useful in calling the Ninevites of our day to repentance and faith. Hear our cry and be with us as we part. We pray in Jesus' name.

64:11 Amen.