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We only obey when the call is to something that takes our fancy (Sandy Roger) Friday 31st January 2025

Writer's picture: Sandy RogerSandy Roger

AN UNPREACHED SERMON (214)

[Picture is from the British Museum and shows a drawing of Assyrian torture.] 


After last Sunday’s evening service, I came home and read right through the book of Jonah. The reason was simple. At present the minister is leading us through the Bible Society’s material dealing with the Bible’s big story. It is a bird’s eye summary of the whole Bible and how it all fits together to present one overall message anticipating and centring on Christ.

 

In the Jonah section I was struck by the two questions we were asked to consider:

·         Why did Jonah run away from the call to go to Nineveh?

·         What makes us feel like running away from God’s call?

Many of the characters in Scripture whom God called showed reluctance, hesitancy and doubt, but Jonah blankly refused to answer God’s call on his life. How God dealt with him and the way the story unfolds makes this one of the most important missionary documents in the whole Bible. We can learn a lot about Jonah and about ourselves by picking out certain aspects of the book. Read the four chapters for yourself.

 

GOD SOMETIMES CALLS US TO TAKE UP TASKS WE DON’T WARM TO.

In Jonah’s case the call was clear and unmistakeable. God called him (Jonah 1:1 AV)

·         To arise (get up)

·         To go (go out)

·         To cry (speak up)

Knowing the brutal reputation of the Assyrians, especially in their capital city of Nineveh, no wonder Jonah felt like running away. This was a call too far. He felt God was asking too much of him. Yet, nearly everyone God called was asked to do something they wouldn’t readily have chosen – but they obeyed in the end! Is it too harsh to suggest in these days of wishy-washy discipleship, that we only obey when the call is to something that takes our fancy? God’s call upon our lives sometimes goes against the grain.

 

GOD’S CALL IS ALWAYS SHOT THROUGH WITH COMPASSION.

Wickedly evil or not, God’s heart was distressed by the way they were living and He wanted to show them mercy. One writer said, “Jonah could protest that the Ninevites did not care about God, but that didn’t make any difference – He cared about them!”  Their sinfulness was an offence against His holiness, but it did not alter His mercy.

Jonah was quite right in his analysis of the Assyrians.

·         They were godless, even though they had hundreds of gods of their own. But they were ignorant of the God of Israel.

·         They were wealthy, far richer than the Israelites. But they were poverty stricken in the things that really mattered most.

·         They were evil through and through; entrenched in barbaric iniquity. What chance of them responding to a tongue-tied, reluctant Hebrew preacher?

·         They were cruel in the extreme; far more than the Egyptians, the Babylonians or the Persians. Their reputation was well known across the Middle East.

 

If you want an idea of their barbarity, it is well displayed in the archaeological finds displayed in the British Museum. There is no doubt Jonah was frightened what they would do to him, but God was working to a bigger plan and wanted to use Jonah to implement it. Are we paralysed into a non-response because our society is godless, wealthy, evil and barbaric?

 

GOD’S CALL IS UNRELENTING.

Because He knows what is best for us and how we fit into the big picture, God refuses to give up on us. Jonah’s attempt to “flee from the presence of the Lord” (1:3) was doomed to failure. God can never be thwarted in his purposes for our lives. He has an uncanny way of intervening in our stubborn refusals. How tragic that Jonah would rather drown than obey God. Disobedience always brings us to a place where we are floundering and drowning.

 

GOD CAN USE OUR STUBBORN REFUSALS TO BRING US TO WILLING OBEDIENCE.

Jonah’s prayer from the belly of the fish (2:1-10) gives him a new perspective on the God who is calling him to this difficult task. He is the God who

·         Corrects our wrong thinking (2:3)

·         Saves both reluctant believers and sinful Assyrians (2:9)

·         Brings a note of thankfulness to our bad experiences (2:9)

 Jonah’s eventual obedience was crowned with great success (3:1-10), which had always been God’s intention. But there is still a lingering personal grievance lodged in his thinking (4:1-11). He turned out to be the preacher God had always known he could be. His preaching style was used by God to win the Ninevites to God’s side; he spoke, as all preachers should:

·         Authoritatively (3:4)

·         Simply (3:4)

·         Convincingly (3:5)

There was nothing complicated about his message, but we can’t help wondering whether he preached too restrictively. He certainly spoke of divine judgement (3:4), but he failed to temper it with divine compassion and mercy; the very things God had shown to him.

It leaves the Ninevites asking, “Who can tell?” (3:9 AV) or “Perhaps God will change His mind; perhaps He will stop being angry, and we will not die” (3:9 GNB).  As preachers and witnesses we must never leave a spiritually ignorant people wondering whether there is such a thing as compassion, mercy and salvation. Jonah could have told them but, even after all he had been through, his prejudices got in the way (4:1-11). Do yours? Do mine?

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