Going Back to Nineveh - Part 1

Originally posted by Brenda, Mon, 14 Jul 2008 13:38:00 GMT on Pawn to King and is filed under Bible Study Notes ~ Copywrite July 14, 2008

Have you ever had a Biblical character that you can truly relate to? More than once, I have found certain commonalities with many of the rich, yet vibrant, ordinary men and women of God’s Word.

Not too long ago, one of my ministry partners, Eric, and I were having a conversation online, and he commented how he felt like David. Now, feeling like David isn’t such a bad thing, as David was a man after God’s own heart, and so is Eric. Eric is also a worshipper, just like David was. So in his contemplative state, that was a good place to be.

As for me, I just had to chuckle. It was one of those days, and I felt like Jonah. It was like I had been swallowed up and spit out on the beach, and now I was heading back to Nineveh to finish what I should have done in the first place. Truthfully, I could have saved myself a lot of time, especially since I knew I would have to deal with it eventually - as we always do.

Since one of the purposes of the Pawn to King blog, is to bring the relevance of scripture and to parallel it with the journeys of our own lives, perhaps we will break this into a couple of small bite-sized chunks for a couple of days, and take pause to think about our connection to “the something familiar” in each of us.

The “something familiar” in this lesson is that “we all have a tendency to want to run from something in our lives”, and Jonah was no acceptation. So let’s check out his story and see what transpired with him....

Going Back to Nineveh

Let’s start at the beginning of Jonah’s story in Jonah 1:1-3 (NIV)...

"1 The word of the Lord came to Jonah son of Amittai: 2 "Go to the great city of Nineveh and preach against it, because its wickedness has come up before me." 3 But Jonah ran away from the Lord and headed for Tarshish. He went down to Joppa, where he found a ship bound for that port. After paying the fare, he went aboard and sailed for Tarshish to flee from the Lord."

The bottom line? God spoke. The man had a mission to fulfill, and he opted not to do it. Not only that, he ran from it.

Jonah’s father's name was Amittai. It was the Hebrew word for "truth". "Truth-telling" was most appropriate to a prophet and this must have been a powerful accountability reminder to Jonah in more ways than one. So, facing the truth that was staring him in the face was unavoidable - he had been instructed and commissioned.

He knew exactly what his assignment was. This prophet of the Lord was being sent to provoke His people to them to a place of repentance. God was pointedly sending him to Nineveh, into a dangerous, powerful, threatening, heathen culture; not for its’ own benefit, but also for the purposes of shaming Israel. Just imagine, the city could possibly be turned around by one single prophet that was on his first preaching assignment - while they themselves had missed the messages of various, prolific, prophets from the past and their current day. So really, just how would that look for them? No doubt, it didn’t feel like a good position for Jonah to want to be put into as they would have no excuses, and neither would he.

Jonah’s choice was to run.

Let’s face it, if all those previous guys couldn’t accomplish what God had sent them there to do, what were the chances that he would? Who could blame him for feeling that way? He would most likely seen as some young prophet spouting words, or perhaps even appearing to them to be a false prophet. Perhaps Jonah’s flesh would even end up getting in the way. No doubt, he probably would have liked to see them going down far more than watching them get right with God. Either way, he had a message to give and he was opting out.

The consequences of withholding the information were not going to be fun. There is an awareness that sin never effects just the person committing it - it effects all those around them too, so one has to wonder what was going through his mind at that very moment. Somebody was going to pay for his deliberacy of omission.

True, Jonah felt weak and inadequate, (we find out just how so in Jonah 4:2, later on), it was because he saw how little he had helped in bringing his own people to God. The other bottom line? He forgot that God was going to help him in his divine calling as a prophet.

“4 Then the Lord sent a great wind on the sea, and such a violent storm arose that the ship threatened to break up. 5 All the sailors were afraid and each cried out to his own god. And they threw the cargo into the sea to lighten the ship. But Jonah had gone below deck, where he lay down and fell into a deep sleep.”

The ship was going down, and in their panic they began tossing the stuff overboard to keep from sinking. In their turmoil, they called upon their own gods and idols for help. Jonah however, was oblivious. Lying down and sleeping was probably his way of coping and hoping it would all go away.

Really, what he sought was a little peace and quiet... but did he really think he could run from God? Psalm 137:7-10 would have been a familiar word to him...

“Where can I go from your Spirit? Where can I flee from your presence? If I go up to the heavens, you are there; if I make my bed in the depths, you are there. If I rise on the wings of the dawn, if I settle on the far side of the sea, even there your hand will guide me, your right hand will hold me fast.”

So why did he think that he would be able to escape the land of Israel, and the prophetic anointing that was on his life?

Seriously, how often do we just want to pull the covers over our head and wish that it would all go away? Do we ourselves think that God is just going to let us off the hook, when He asks us to do something? Even Jonah knew the real answer to that one.

Take this time and ask yourself, "what has He been asking you to do that you are running from, or procrastinating about"? What is that purpose and destiny He is calling you to? Do you already know? Have you ever even asked?

Have you thought about the passions of your heart, and the dreams that you once had? You will often find the answers have been there all along.You do know you are going to end up doing it eventually, right?

We can either work with Him, or against Him... His methods may not always make sense right away, but they will certainly work.

He will always win, and eventually we will find ourselves "going back to Nineveh"... to finish what we should have done in the first place.