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Sacramento Central SDA Church

Biblical Missionaries

Chris Buttery

The Missionary Nature of God

Abraham: The First Missionary

The Unlikely Missionary

The Jonah Saga

Exiles As Missionaries

Peter and the Gentiles

Background and Call

Paul: Mission & Message

Well, we're going to go into our lesson study and it's lesson number 4.

I can't believe that we are a third of the way through our studies already and talking about biblical missionaries, the Jonah saga, the Jonah saga.

The memory text is Acts chapter 10, verse 34 and 35, and I'll be reading from the New King James Version.

It says, then Peter opened his mouth and said, "'In truth I perceive that God shows no partiality, "'but in every nation, whoever fears Him and works righteousness is what?

And we'll be talking about this a little bit more as we move through our lesson.

And I would invite you to turn with me there, we're going to be spending our time there reviewing this story here this morning, the story of Jonah and it's a little book tucked away in the Old Testament and if you just flip through and you pass Obadiah and just before Nahum, you're going to come to the little book of Jonah.

You probably know and are familiar with the fact that Jonah, the story of Jonah, gets some flack, gets a hard time from time to time because of the story of Jonah being swallowed by a fish, and so a lot of people, and even some Christians, view the story of Jonah as an allegory or a fable, designed just simply to teach them spiritual lessons.

And when we talk about Jonah, some people view Jonah, or when they think of a jinx, they think of Jonah.

Someone who is a jinx is a Jonah, and these things are kind of commonly associated with the story of Jonah, but the story of Jonah is a factual, historical story.

As a matter of fact, it reminds me of a little story that I read about a lady who was on a bus traveling and she was reading her Bible, and there was a gentleman who had parked himself next to her and he noticed that she was reading the Bible and he was not a believer in God or the Bible and he challenged her her belief in the Bible.

Can you really be sure that you can trust the Bible?

Well can you really be sure that God made the earth in 6 days and rest of the seventh?

Literal 24-hour consecutive days, 6 days.

Well yes, without even looking up she said yes I believe that.

And she said well are you sure you can believe the Bible?

Can you believe that God really saved Noah and his family in an ark and that the whole world was filled with water?

Without missing a beat, she said, yes, I believe the Bible to be true.

And then he said, well, I don't know how you can believe the Bible, especially that story about Jonah.

He said, it's not possible that a person can be swallowed by a great fish or a whale.

And she, without looking up, said, well, I believe the story and I don't fully understand it, but I guess I'll ask Jonah when I get to heaven.

And he said, well, what happens if there is no heaven?

And then she said, I guess you'll have to ask him yourself.

The story of Jonah is a factual historical story.

If we're going to allegorize the story of Jonah, what are we going to do with Jesus?

Because Jesus referred to the story of Jonah in Matthew chapter 12, and we'll get to that little incident here before too long.

Jesus considered the story of Jonah to be an actual historical event, a story that actually took place.

And if we're going to question the story of Jonah, then guess what we're going to have to do?

And if we're starting to question Jesus, we have to question His Messiahship and ask the question whether He is truly the Son of God or not.

I'd like to think that Jesus was telling the truth, I'd like to think that Jesus saw the story as historical and factual, and I believe we can see it the same way as well.

The story of Jonah occurs around the middle to the late 8th century, during a very difficult period of Israelite history.

The king, the kings that sat on the thrones of Israel, the throne of Israel, according to the Bible, all did evil in the sight of the Lord and national judgment was fast approaching Israel.

Although God brought blessings to Israel in the hope that it would induce His people to turn back to Him, Then King Jeroboam II, the Bible says, did evil in the sight of the Lord, as did his successors.

So it wasn't good, it wasn't a pretty situation for the nation of Israel.

Assyria was the ruling nation at that time, it was the dominant nation of the time, bringing the surrounding nations under her rule.

The capital of Assyria was the city of Nineveh, the city of Nineveh, and the city of Nineveh is associated with the story of Jonah.

So, Nineveh was the capital of Assyria and it was founded by Nimrod and you can read the story back there in Genesis chapter 10 and verse 11.

And it was founded by him on the fertile banks of the Tigris River soon after the dispersion of the Tower of Babel.

Over the centuries it flourished until, according to Jonah, it became an exceeding city of 3 days journey.

And that's not to suggest that it would take 3 full days to walk 1 length to the other, it's just Jonah's way of saying that it was a mammoth city and it took him 3 days to get around and preach, you see.

We're told that the total length of the ancient walls were about 7 and a half miles and it's easy to measure them because they are still there to be seen today.

The area of the walled city, which is roughly triangular in shape, is about 1, 640 acres.

By allowing about 50 square yards per person in Nineveh, the ancient population inside the walls may be estimated at about 160, 000 people and you could be sure that there were more people living on the outside of those walls.

It was in this city, or this city, that Jonah, the only prophet called to go to another country to share the message of God, was called to go to.

So, the question that we'll be answering here today is, does God care, does God desire all people to have a knowledge of Himself?

Was the Gospel just for Israel at that particular time or for all people in that region?

The story of Jonah will highlight and highlights the need for missionaries and it outlines 1 man's response to the call of God to go on a mission for Him.

And so we pick up the story and the lesson on Sunday's lesson and we'll look at the flawed prophet here, Jonah, the flawed prophet.

Turn with me, if you've got your finger in Jonah, go back to 2 Kings chapter 14 because we actually first read about Jonah in the second book of Kings, in chapter 14 and verse 25.

Now when we think of Jonah, what do we think about?

What is Jonah known for, apart from being swallowed by a fish?

What was the reason he was swallowed by the big fish?

He ran in the opposite direction from the direction God had called him to go, as a matter of fact, Nineveh was northeast and Tarshish was west, so he ran in the exact opposite direction.

We know Jonah as someone who was fearful, afraid, discouraged, who didn't answer the call of God initially.

Look at 2 Kings 14 verse 25, notice what it says, he restored the territory of Israel, this is Jeroboam, Jeroboam the second, he restored the territory of Israel from the entrance of Hamath to the sea of Araba, according to the word of the Lord God of Israel, which he had spoken through his servant, who?

Jonah, Jonah the son of Amittai, the prophet who was with or who was from Gath-Hephir.

So, we think of Jonah as the runaway prophet and truly, he did repent and turn around and went on the mission that God originally called him to, but our first introduction to Jonah is actually an introduction of affirmation, of commendation.

According to what we just read, what impression does this leave you about Jonah?

He prophesied something that God had asked him to tell the people of Israel and what happened?

It came to pass just like Jonah had prophesied, you see.

So Jonah, we see it, the first picture we see of Jonah is a faithful messenger or voice for God.

That's the first picture we get of Jonah here in the Scriptures.

We see that Jonah, in these verses, we see that Jonah had a wider mission than what we see in the book of Jonah, just to Nineveh, he had a much wider mission.

He was from a place in the borders of Zebulun, about 2 and 3 quarter miles north by east of Nazareth, where Jesus grew up, and apparently there's an alleged tomb of Jonah that's still exhibited there.

So this makes Jesus and Jonah Galilean prophets, separated by about 750 years.

Jonah, in this verse, is honored as a prophet who predicted Israel's recapture of territory that was originally taken by Syria.

And so he's commended and he's put in a favorable light for delivering a message and God brought that promise about for his people.

And so what we learn about Jonah here is that he faithfully discharged his duty, that's what we learn about Jonah here.

Jonah means dove, that's what Jonah means, dove, and his father's name was Amittai, which means faithfulness.

Jonah was a prophet of God And so 1 could expect that a faithful dove would be obedient to the call of God, but instead when we read the story of Jonah, when we get to his book, we see Jonah quote unquote flying in the opposite direction, going in a different direction than God has called him.

Let's go over to Jonah now, let's pick up the story.

Jonah chapter 1, and we'll read a few verses here together.

Jonah 1, and we'll read verses 1 through 3, then we're gonna jump over to chapter 2, chapter 3, and chapter 4, just to read a couple of verses.

And I want to ask the question, what do these verses tell us about Jonah's relation to the call to go to Nineveh?

What do these verses that we're gonna read here tell us about Jonah in relation to his call to go to Nineveh?

Look at Jonah chapter 1, verses 1 through 3.

Now, the word of the Lord came to Jonah the son of Amittai saying, arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and cry out against it, for their wickedness has come up before me.

But Jonah arose to flee to Tarshish from the presence of the Lord.

He went down to Joppa, found a ship going to Tarshish, so he paid the fare, went down into it to go with them to Tarshish from the presence of the Lord.

Okay, let's jump over to chapter 2, verse 7.

Now Jonah is in the belly of this great big fish and he's praying to God.

In verse 7 he says, when my soul fainted within me, I remembered the Lord and my prayer went up to you into your holy temple.

All right, we're just pulling some pieces together.

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Series

Biblical Missionaries

The Jonah Saga

Transcript

Parent Series

Sponsor

Recorded

Attachments

Sabbath School 4th Quarter 2023: God's Mission My Mission

02 God’s Mission to Us Part 2

18m

GYC 2013 Seminar: Planet in Distress

02-The Consequence of Sin

50m

Country Living and the New French Revolution

45m

The Promise Land

31m

Plenary Sessions

The Thing the Devil Hates

50m

ACM: 1 The History of City Missions in the Adventist Church

1h 19m

Jeremiah

01. Jeremiah: The Prophetic Calling of Jeremiah

51m

The Undergirding of Prophetic Truth

1h

The Spirit of Prophecy Matters

1h 5m

OYC 2011 Seminars

Kellogg vs. The Ministry: A Century of Collateral Damage

56m

Good Tidings

39m

Fire In My Bones

28m

Sound Doctrine