Let us ask God's blessing on these studies in the prophecy of Jonah.
Our Heavenly Father, without whose light we cannot rightly discern Thy truth,
and who has given all scripture for our learning, grant now the light of Thy Holy Spirit,
that upon the work and witness of Thy servant Jonah there may come a freshness,
and aptness to our own need, out of which our heart's deepest need, deepest longing,
may be fully met through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
In these studies in the book of Jonah, we propose to take six talks as follows.
An introductory talk today on the background of the book, we shall speak on the man God called.
Then tomorrow we shall study, under the heading of saying but to God,
the way of a backslider in full flight from the will of God.
The third study will be dealing with God's way with a backslider,
perhaps we could use...
In the fourth study, which will be taken from chapter two,
we learn of Jonah's surrender to the will of God.
In the fifth study, which will occupy chapter three,
we learn of Jonah's missionary service and of his amazing success as an evangelist.
And in the final study, chapter four, of the way in which he seemed to spoil it all
through self-will in his surrendered life.
And here we will find that the most earnest consecrated soul
has still to meet the problem of his own willfulness and waywardness.
Now let's take our message for this morning, the background of the book of Jonah.
Here we read of God's dealings with an honored prophet,
who fell into willfulness and disobedience,
drifted into the far country of the backslider,
was reclaimed by the sovereign love of God,
then experienced the blessedness of the broken heart and the surrendered will.
Immediately he was recommissioned to a task of missionary evangelism
in which he succeeded in a spectacular way.
Then he seemed to spoil it all by petulance and an upsurge of the old willfulness.
We'll find all of this in the space of 48 verses,
and I ask you to read prayerfully day by day the content of this fascinating little book.
You will probably find that it mirrors in a wonderful way your own heart's experience.
First then, Jonah and the background of his book.
Will you note first that he was a real person?
He was a real person.
Jonah chapter 1 verse 1 says,
Jonah, the son of Amittai, it tells us his father.
2 Kings chapter 14 verse 25 identifies his hometown.
Jonah, son of Amittai, the prophet of Gath-hephir.
Matthew chapter 12 verses 39 to 41 and Luke 11 29 to 32
are the two New Testament references from the lips of Christ
which confirm the historicity of Jonah, the nature of his work,
and the typical character of his ministry.
Jonah is here shown to be as real as Jesus and assigned to this generation,
pointing us to the greater than Jonah, Jesus Christ our Lord.
Notice in the second place that he was an honored servant of God.
He was honored with a great name.
Jonah means dove.
And if at times he seems to have something of the savagery of the hawk
or the insolence of the starling,
then isn't that something in which he rather resembles ourselves?
Secondly, notice that he was honored with a great office.
He was to be Jehovah's mouthpiece.
He was to be endued with the power of the Holy Spirit.
He was to exercise an influence on nation and king.
And you too are honored with a great name and a great office.
Sons of God, ye shall be witnesses unto me.
In the third place, he was honored with a great task.
He lived and prophesied during the reign of Jeroboam II of Israel,
round about 793 to 753 B.C.
He was an admirer of his sovereign, Isaiah,
just as Isaiah was of his sovereign, Isaiah.
From the upland home at Gathhefer,
Jonah looked out upon a world such as we knew in 1940.
On the horizon, savage and powerful, was the great nation of Assyria,
ruled by gangster kings who lived by plunder
and liquidation of the weaker nations.
To these people God now sends Jonah, a dove into a den of vultures.
What privilege, what divine audacity.
He was selected for this supreme task,
this crusade in central, eastern Europe.
We misjudge Jonah and lose the deep meaning of this prophet's action
if we charge him with cowardice and fear.
There is another explanation for his flight
and for God's subsequent rescue of his servant.
And this leads me to the third point, which is this,
that Jonah was a true patriot.
He saw down the darkening vista of the years
the march of the gangster kings, Shalmaneser
and the rest of the Assyrian warlords.
Father and father afield they ranged,
until in horrid anticipation Jonah foresaw the sack of his upland home,
the plundering of the outlying cities of Israel,
deportation after deportation of her peoples,
to be swallowed up as displaced persons
against the barons and fastnesses of Parthia and Kurdistan.
Last of all he saw in prospect the sack of Samaria,
the capital of his own beloved nation,
the streets crimsoned with rivers of blood,
the blood of his own family.
This actually eventuated in 722 BC,
some 50 years after God spoke to Jonah about his call to Nineveh.
As a patriot this cut Jonah to the heart.
He resolved to frustrate the terrible possibility
by refusing to preach to Nineveh.
Then God will have no alternative
but to wipe out the Assyrians in their wreaking evil.
Yes, Jonah has made his plans.
He will flee.
No message of impending doom will reach the people of Nineveh.
Then God will suddenly destroy them and Israel shall survive.
To this effect, Jerome in the 4th century
wrote almost in these identical words,
The prophet knew through the inward suggestion of the Holy Spirit
that the repentance of the Assyrians would mean the ruin of the Jews.
Therefore, as a lover of his own country,
he was not so much displeased at the salvation of Nineveh
as a verse to the destruction of his own people.
Because he is so pure a patriot, he will be no longer a prophet.
Better a thousand times that he, Jonah, should die for the people
than that the whole beloved nation of Israel should perish.
The fourth thing to notice by way of introduction
is that Jonah is undoubtedly a type.
A type in scripture.
First, he is a type of Christ.
Matthew 12 shows this perfectly clearly.
Jonah was an Israelite, the servant of the Lord,
and his experience was brought about because of the sins of a heathen nation.
Jesus the Messiah was the Israelite, the servant of the Lord,
and his death was brought about by the sins of the whole world.
Jonah points forward to Christ.
In this sense, the whole narrative is vividly prophetic of Luke 24, 27.
Beginning at Moses and all the prophets.
All the prophets.
Have you ever liked to think what it would have meant
to have been with Cleophas and his friend on that resurrection afternoon
and to have felt your heart warm within you
as Jesus showed from the book of Jonah as one of the prophets,
those things concerning himself.
Secondly, Jonah was a type of Israel.
He is to be cast into the seas and delivered again
so that he may accomplish his divine mission.
The Jews are to be cast into their stormy captivity,
but a remnant will be restored and will yet fulfill God's purpose
for the Jewish people in the world.
In the third place, Jonah's mission is a rebuke to hardened Israel.
Hosea has unfolded the warm message of the love of God
without a flicker of response.
Amos has confronted the nation with its wickedness and impending doom
with like result.
For 100 years God has wrestled with Israel,
alternately beseeching and threatening, without avail.
Now Jonah goes to a savage heathen nation and they repent at once.
Fourthly, Jonah's mission is a foreview of the wideness of the gospel invitation.
Hard bitten Jews had smugly claimed the whole heart of God for themselves.
Through this message of Jonah, they are to learn in the words of F.W. Faber
that the love of God is broader than the measure of man's mind
and the heart of the eternal is most wonderfully kind.
Finally, and rather delightfully, you will notice that Jonah is an honest author.
Who, do you suppose, wrote this revelation of Jonah's disobedience,
willfulness, petulance, folly, if not himself?
To you and me, it may speak more of our own autobiography than of Jonah's.
It depends upon our willingness to hear.
Will you be an honest hearer as he is an honest writer?
This is a beautiful example of candor.
Jonah unveils the whole unhappy story of his backsliding, his disobedience,
his doubts, his surliness, his stubbornness, his silly, childish pettiness
and how far it is from honouring him.
But this prophecy is written for two reasons.
To honour God in the majesty of his sovereign love
and to assist you and me in the daily affliction of our own coldness of heart,
waywardness and tendency from his will.
I close with the words of John Campbell Shearpe,
one-time professor of poetry at Oxford.
I have a life with Christ to live, and ere I live it,
must I wait till learning has true answer given to this and that book's date?
I have a life in Christ to live, I have a death in Christ to die,
and must I wait till science give all doubts a full reply?
Nay, rather, while the sea of doubt is raging wildly round about,
questioning of life and death and sin,
let me but creep within thy fold, O Lord,
and at thy feet take but the lowest seat
and hear thy solemn voice repeat in gentlest accents, heavenly sweet,
come unto me and rest, believe me and be blessed.
So may it be. Amen.