A woman I work with shared with me a while ago that she was once a Sunday School teacher. The other week I made a reference to Jonah in the whale and she responded, and I paraphrase, "I look back at teaching about that story and I wonder if I didn't tell the kids something to cause unbelief." Her meaning was she questioned whether the Bible story was really true and she wasn't spreading falsehoods.
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"The fact is, Jonah was a real person and the things in the Book of Jonah are real historic narratives; they're real historic events and not 'made-up stuff.' It's not a fable, it's not a dream, it's not a parable; it's historic reality," says Richard Jordan.
"Jonah is probably one of the most maligned books in all of the Bible. People just don't like it for a lot of reasons. They say, 'It wasn't a whale.' That's the big thing. They say, 'He didn't really die.' And God forbid that he had been resurrected.
"And, you know, 'It's a favorite children's story but it's an allegory.' Like I said, it's called a legend, a myth, a fable, religious fiction. Anything just to reject the miraculous part of it, and the reason for that is the Lord Jesus Christ, in Matthew 12 and Luke 11, says Jonah is a picture of Him and so the Book of Jonah is more than just historic narrative. There's some doctrine being taught in the Book of Jonah; Jesus said that Jonah was a 'sign.'
Matthew 12: [39] But he answered and said unto them, An evil and adulterous generation seeketh after a sign; and there shall no sign be given to it, but the sign of the prophet Jonas:
[40] For as Jonas was three days and three nights in the whale's belly; so shall the Son of man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.[41] The men of Nineveh shall rise in judgment with this generation, and shall condemn it: because they repented at the preaching of Jonas; and, behold, a greater than Jonas is here.
"That's a statement by the Lord Jesus Christ that validates the historical validity of Jonah. It also demonstrates something about the doctrinal impact of the Book of Jonah.
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"Jonah is sent to Nineveh; Nahum is going to be sent to Nineveh. Between them is Micah who has a message about some things that are going to go on between those two issues. There's about 100 hundred years, historically, between the time of Jonah and then when Nahum prophesied.
Nahum 1:2: [2] God is jealous, and the LORD revengeth; the LORD revengeth, and is furious; the LORD will take vengeance on his adversaries, and he reserveth wrath for his enemies.
"I mean, this thing is not going to be good for Nineveh. If you look at the very last verse of the book, Nahum 3:19: [19] There is no healing of thy bruise; thy wound is grievous: all that hear the bruit of thee shall clap the hands over thee: for upon whom hath not thy wickedness passed continually?
"What's wrong with Nineveh they're not going to get over? God's just going to wipe them out. In Nahum it's, 'Woe to Nineveh,' but in Jonah, God says, 'Go to Nineveh.'
"Jonah was sent with a message of repentance and the people do repent. What happens with Nahum is he goes with a message of, 'There's no ability to repent.'
"There's two different things going on in the ministry of these two men, separated by a period of time. Nineveh repents, then they apostasize again and then there's no hope for them.
"Now, Jonah didn't want Nineveh to repent; he wanted God to destroy Nineveh because Nineveh is the capital city of Assyria and the Assyrians in Jonah's time were beginning to be arch enemies of the nation Israel.
"He didn't want Nineveh to gain any military prowess. Eventually they did, and eventually it turns out to be the Assyrians who carry the northern kingdom, where Jonah is, off into the fifth course of judgment and captivity. So, Jonah wants God to wipe them out to take away the threat.
Jonah 4: [1] But it displeased Jonah exceedingly, and he was very angry.
[2] And he prayed unto the LORD, and said, I pray thee, O LORD, was not this my saying, when I was yet in my country? Therefore I fled before unto Tarshish: for I knew that thou art a gracious God, and merciful, slow to anger, and of great kindness, and repentest thee of the evil.
[3] Therefore now, O LORD, take, I beseech thee, my life from me; for it is better for me to die than to live.
"Jonah says, 'I knew it, I knew it, I knew it! I knew you were going to do that. I knew if they heard that message and got right you'd forgive them; you'd let them off the hook and not destroy them! That's why I fled! I knew how you are.'
"You go to Nahum and God goes from gracious to jealous. Where Jonah would say He's merciful, Nahum says He's a revenger. Where Jonah says He's slow to anger, Nahum says, 'Yeah, He's slow to anger but His patience has run out. He's over with it; it doesn't last forever.'
"Where Jonah says He's got great kindness, in Nahum it's, 'Hey, forget the kindness stuff; His patience is over with. He's not weak; He's powerful and He's going to come and do it.'
"So, when Jonah says God's going to change His mind about destroying them if they repent, in Nahum it's, 'Tough apples, dude, it's over with.' There's the contrast.
"Nineveh, the capital of Assyria, is eventually going to be the nation that carries Israel off into Babylonian captivity and it's going to be one of the nations that's used as a picture of the Antichrist. Some of the most clear, prophetic prophesies about the course and career of the Antichrist are under him in the capacity of the Assyrian.
"There's some doctrine being taught in the events in Jonah that, when you see them you see a prophecy about a future Jewish evangelist who goes out and preaches to the nations. It's really not just a type and picture of the Lord Jesus Christ, but it's a picture of the nation Israel itself.
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David writes in Psalm 139: [1] O LORD, thou hast searched me, and known me.
[2] Thou knowest my downsitting and mine uprising, thou understandest my thought afar off.[3] Thou compassest my path and my lying down, and art acquainted with all my ways.
[4] For there is not a word in my tongue, but, lo, O LORD, thou knowest it altogether.
[5] Thou hast beset me behind and before, and laid thine hand upon me.
[6] Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; it is high, I cannot attain unto it.
"Jonah quotes the Book of Psalms seven times and would have known the psalms of David. He would have known you can't go to sea, or anywhere else, and get away from God," explains Jordan.
"So when it says Jonah flees the presence of the Lord, it's not so much that he's trying to get away to a place where God isn't; he knows that's not possible.
"His idea was, 'If I can get out of the land of Israel, then that spirit of prophecy that's on me won't be on me anymore.' What he's doing is running from the ministry; from his prophetic office, the position he's been given as God's witness man in the earth.
I Kings 17 begins: [1] And Elijah the Tishbite, who was of the inhabitants of Gilead, said unto Ahab, As the LORD God of Israel liveth, before whom I stand, there shall not be dew nor rain these years, but according to my word. [2] And the word of the LORD came unto him, saying, [3] Get thee hence, and turn thee eastward, and hide thyself by the brook Cherith, that is before Jordan.
"That idea of 'before whom I stand,' is, 'I'm His messenger.'
II Chronicles 29:11: [11] My sons, be not now negligent: for the LORD hath chosen you to stand before him, to serve him, and that ye should minister unto him, and burn incense.
"Jonah's trying to get out of the ministry, which is exactly what His nation had done.
"There is hard, physical evidence of the Phoenicians visiting the North American and South American continents, the new world, before the time of Christ. There's evidence that they had sailed the whole planet.
"Solomon used these folks in his kingly activities. I Kings 10:22: [22] For the king had at sea a navy of Tharshish with the navy of Hiram: once in three years came the navy of Tharshish, bringing gold, and silver, ivory, and apes, and peacocks.
"King Hiram is a Phoenician king with his Phoenician navy. You can get gold and silver from a lot of places, but to get apes and peacocks you couldn't do that in the Mediterranean.
"Tharshish is as far across the Mediterranean as you can go. It's a city of Spain. What Jonah's trying to do is get as far away from Jerusalem as he can get, which is the other end of the Mediterranean and he's on a boat that will take him as far away as Africa and perhaps East India.
"It took three years for these ships of Tarshish to make their circuit. That's the reason they came to Solomon every three years.
II Chronicles 9:21: [21] For the king's ships went to Tarshish with the servants of Huram: every three years once came the ships of Tarshish bringing gold, and silver, ivory, and apes, and peacocks.
"You had to go around to Africa to get the apes and to India to get the peacocks, meaning these ships went long, long ways. My point to you about Jonah is he's trying to get out of town and he's serious about it. He's willing to go as far away as he can to get out of the ministry.
Jonah 1: [3] But Jonah rose up to flee unto Tarshish from the presence of the LORD, and went down to Joppa; and he found a ship going to Tarshish: so he paid the fare thereof, and went down into it, to go with them unto Tarshish from the presence of the LORD. [4] But the LORD sent out a great wind into the sea, and there was a mighty tempest in the sea, so that the ship was like to be broken.
"Any time you leave the Lord, you know which direction you're going? Jonah is in such a hurry he doesn't even take time to get a passenger ship; he gets on a freighter, a merchant ship with a bunch of mariners. He takes the first berth out of town and he paid the fare.
"Listen, when you depart from the Lord there's a price to be paid and you know who's going to pay that? You see, there's a lot of preaching and spiritual application in these verses.
"Hebrews 12 says God chastens His sons, so He's going to chasten Jonah. He's going to deal with him and He's going to deal with him in afflictions. Now the great storm is a type and picture of what Israel will go through in the tribulation.
Jonah 1:5: [5] Then the mariners were afraid, and cried every man unto his god, and cast forth the wares that were in the ship into the sea, to lighten it of them. But Jonah was gone down into the sides of the ship; and he lay, and was fast asleep.
"Jonah's gone down into the bottom of the ship and he's in a deep sleep. He just keeps going down, down, down, down. Get to chapter 2 and he's going to go down to the bottom of the mountains, go down to hell. He's on a real slide down.
"When it says he's in a deep sleep, that's the opposite of the Lord Jesus when He's in the ship and it's tossed at sea and His disciples ask, 'How can you sleep when we're fixing to perish in this storm?'
"Similar storm as in Jonah, a picture of the tribulation, but their problem was Jesus said, 'We're going to go to the other side,' and then He went to sleep because He was trusting the will of His Father about where they were going and He wasn't worried about it.
"Now, Jonah's sleep is a sleep of exhaustion. He's a guy running from God and he's completely worn out. Have you noticed we live in an exhausted world? When you run pell-mell from God in your own way, doing your own thing, that's where you wind up."
(new article tomorrow)
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