Running with God
By Jeff Cranston
When it comes to making mistakes, we're all pros. Only a few people, though, have mastered the art of blowing it big time. Their errors are, by and away, the most egregious. In Stephen Pile’s “The Book of Heroic Failures,” [1] he lists numerous gaffes. Here are a few of them:
Back in 1962, a Decca Record Co. executive refused to give a new British rock group a recording contract. “We don’t like the Beatles sound,” he said. “Groups with guitars are on their way out.”
In 1837, music critic Philip Hale announced, “If Beethoven’s 7th Symphony is not by some means abridged, it will soon fall into disuse.”
A Munich schoolmaster once told a 10-year-old student, “You’ll never amount to very much.” The student was Albert Einstein.
When we watch the winners of the Super Bowl, the World Series, the U.S. Open or the Olympics, if the person or team we’ve rooted for comes out on top, we nod our heads knowingly when they describe their success and how they achieved it. It’s easy to construct a theology of success. It is much more difficult to construct a theology of failure. We all understand what it is to fail at times. Maybe that’s why we are drawn to what author Haddon Robinson called, “This little phrase for losers.”
“Now the Word of the Lord came to Jonah the second time … ” – Jonah 3:1
Failure does not necessarily cramp or negate God’s power in our lives. Read Jonah 3.
God making use of us is the best evidence of His being at peace with us.
British commentator Matthew Henry said, “God making use of us is the best evidence of His being at peace with us. God’s Word has come to Jonah a second time. The need in Nineveh remains. God still has a message for them. And Jonah, in spite of all that has happened, is still God’s chosen messenger for the great city. God says, “Go, Jonah … travel those 550 miles and preach the message I will provide for you at the appropriate time.”
Calling people to repentance from their sin and wickedness was not the most enjoyable of tasks in those days. People were not waiting in line to talk with prophets about judgment and the holiness and righteousness of God. The same is still true today. But it is wise to do what God has called us to do, regardless of the popularity of the task. And that’s what Jonah did this time. Jonah 3:3 says, “So Jonah arose and went to Nineveh according to the word of the Lord.”
Why this time, Jonah, and not last time? Because Jonah had learned a very valuable lesson. Go back and look into Jonah 1 and 2. He received his commission; he disobeyed God; then the hand of God’s discipline falls on him.
Call from God + my disobedience = discipline
Call from God + my obedience = blessing
You see this everywhere in Scripture. Now, suppose Jonah had still ignored God and ran away a second time? I’ll guarantee you this: Jonah may not have known what was about to happen this time if he obeyed the Lord, but he knew, beyond a shadow of a doubt, what would happen if he disobeyed the Lord again.
Jonah sets out for Nineveh. Jonah 3:3b-4, says “Now Nineveh was an exceedingly great city, a three days’ walk. Then Jonah began to go through the city one day’s walk; and he cried out and said, “Yet forty days and Nineveh will be overthrown.”
It’s such a massive place that it takes three days to walk from one end of it to another. Jonah is to proclaim the very same message God had given him from the start. It has not been altered to suit him nor has it been made more palatable to its hearers.
He had no idea where he was supposed to go in the city or what would happen to him when he got there, but he knew he had to do what the Lord asked. This is God's method of working. Right now, we may not comprehend what He is doing or what He wants us to do, but we will. It may seem to you that the world is going crazy. But wait: The world is not falling apart; the world is falling exactly in line with God’s sovereign plan for the human race. God will maintain us in a permanent condition of reliance on Him, directing us to His Word through His providence. That was a lesson Jonah was also learning.
The Word of God is unalterable.
Well, what happened? The “great city of Nineveh” repented. Jonah 3:5 informs us, “Then the people of Nineveh believed in God; and they called a fast and put on sackcloth from the greatest to the least of them.”
Jonah’s message was understood; this was a word of judgment brought by the hand of God through one of His prophets. Wickedness in a city or nation ripens it for destruction. Whether from within or without, neither their wealth nor their greatness can protect them. Great cities and nations are easily overthrown when the great God comes to reckon with them.
God’s message through Jonah came, and the people believed the message! They had called on many gods before, but now they were acknowledging the one true and living God. It is to Him they are accountable; against Him, they have sinned. They believed in God …
News of Jonah and his message and the resulting repentance reached the king at his palace. The king was likely King Shalmaneser III, king of the Assyrians. When he heard what was happening, he joined the fast. He rose from his royal throne, laid aside his royal robe, his badge of imperial dignity, and acknowledged that he had misused his power by not restraining violence and evil-doing. He was humiliated by the sin of his land and in dread and fear of the coming wrath and judgment of God. Jonah 3:7-8 says, “He issued a proclamation and it said, ‘In Nineveh by the decree of the king and his nobles: Do not let man, beast, herd, or flock taste a thing. Do not let them eat or drink water. But both man and beast must be covered with sackcloth and let men call on God earnestly. ’”
No food or drink. They were serious! It was a thorough fast showing thorough repentance. Even the animals and beasts of the field were involved. Let their moans and cries for food be moans and cries of repentance.
There is now only one step between them and utter destruction and ruin: They must cry out to God—every man, woman and child.
Let’s apply this to our own lives. In prayer, and sometimes in fasting, we must cry out to God mightily, with thoughts and hearts fixed, with serious intentions, with devout affection and devotion.
The Ninevites did so because they heard that Almighty God was coming against them as an enemy! This gives us another takeaway for our lives …
To avoid ruin, we must experience humility.
“…that each may turn from his wicked way and from the violence which is in his hands.” – Jonah 3:8c
In addition to the Ninevites’ fasting and prayer along came reformation and amendment. In all
of our lives, as God works in us, there must be seasons of change, and change requires humility:
Restore what has been taken unjustly
Make reparation for what wrongs have been done
No longer oppress those whom you have power over
No longer defraud those with whom they have had business dealings
No longer make unrighteous decrees
No longer use violence as a means to an end
No longer use unjust weights or measures
Why? So that God’s fierce anger may turn!
Hope and mercy are the great encouragements to repentance and reformation. The Ninevites were willing to cast themselves prostrate before God Almighty. If they perished, they would perish there; yet, “Who knows, God may turn and relent and withdraw His burning anger so that we will not perish” (Jonah 3:9).
And so—what happens?! Jonah 3:10 says, “When God saw their deeds, that they turned from their wicked way, then God relented concerning the calamity which He had declared He would bring upon them. And He did not do it.”
Due to His compassion, God did not destroy Nineveh. God’s message to the mighty Assyrian Empire had been delivered by a wayward prophet, the message had been heard and received, and the people were saved. God is a God of judgment, but He is also a God of grace and mercy. God freely forgives those who come to Him in true repentance and faith, trusting Him to act justly and with compassion.
When we have failed God, and we admit that before Him, and we humble ourselves and repent, He takes note of every act of inner reformation by the one who has strayed—whether the rest of the world sees it or not.
In the end, everything worked out OK; it worked out fine because Jonah made two shocking and astounding discoveries. He discovered something in his fellow man that he had never imagined and something in God that he had never suspected.
He discovered in people an amazing susceptibility to divine truth. Jonah's first surprise met him both on land and at sea. The pagan sailors on the ship were on their knees in contrition and supplication as he talked of God to them. He preached to the people of Nineveh, and they all repented in sackcloth and ashes, from the king down!
Jonah had no idea, until then, that, in the depths of the human soul, there is a certain something that responds to the divine appeal as a lock responds to the key that is made to fit it.
And his second discovery was more sensational still: He made his second discovery when he saw God relent towards the people of Nineveh and regard their cry for forgiveness.
Why, he asked himself, why did God give the people of Nineveh a second chance? And then it occurred to him that the things that had happened to Nineveh were exactly the same things that happened to him.
For he, a prodigal prophet, flying from the presence of the Lord, had been brought back and given a second chance. “The word of the Lord came to Jonah a second time.” And then the truth flashed before him. Of course! There could be but one explanation. God must LOVE Nineveh! And God must LOVE Jonah!
He had never thought of that. It had never occurred to him that God was very fond even of people who had never heard of Him, very fond even of those who were sinning against Him, very fond even of prophets who, rather than carry forth in their calling, were shamefully trying to flee from His presence!
Those two discoveries made a new man out of Jonah. That is why centuries later, Jesus talked pensively, kindly, and appreciatively about Jonah.
Jonah and Jesus! Jesus and Jonah! Jonah emerging from his weird, watery tomb to call a great city to repentance; Jesus rising from a borrowed tomb to be the Savior of the whole wide world! And both of them pointing to those who know not God. Arise … go … proclaim. That’s still our call today.
Jeff Cranston is the lead pastor of LowCountry Community Church in Bluffton, South Carolina.
[1] Stephen Pile. The Incomplete Book of Failures. Musson Book Co. January 1, 1981.
