"They knew not... the voices of the
prophets which are read every sabbath" (Acts 13:27).
All that the majority of Christians, and others,
know about the Prophet Jonah is the quite general
substance of the little book that goes by his name. It is
that he was commanded to go to Nineveh and deliver a
solemn warning as to imminent judgment: that he refused
to go and ran away, taking a ship to Tarshish: that a
heavy storm arose on the sea so that the ship and crew
were in jeopardy of their lives: that the superstitious
sailors decided that there was a man of evil omen on
board and they cast lots as to who it was: that the lot
fell on Jonah; he confessed and told them to throw him
overboard: that he was swallowed by a great fish and
three days later was vomited on to dry land: and so
forth.
Very little more and
other is commonly known about Jonah, and the mention of
his name usually brings little other than: 'Oh, yes,
Jonah was swallowed by a whale!'
The fact is that Jonah
was a great Prophet in Israel, contemporary with the
close of Elisha's ministry (2 Kings 14:25). It will
perhaps surprise our readers to know that in the middle
of the nineteenth century a saintly and scholarly servant
of God in Scotland wrote a book on the ministry of Jonah
which runs into no fewer than 359 pages.
We shall see later that
the Lord Jesus Himself concentrated His testimony to
Israel with two references to Jonah. In this series of
messages, as you have recognized, we are not dealing with
the life and times of each Prophet in question, but only
seeking to put our finger upon what we believe to be the
particular 'Voice' of each; it is a matter of what is
resultant from the passing on of the Prophet. The Prophet
passes by, but his 'Voice' remains! The voice of Jonah is
very challenging, and Jesus hung the destiny of Israel as
a nation upon that voice. What then does this voice
say at all times, and to our time essentially?
1. Firstly we must take
note of a certain uniqueness about Jonah and his mission.
It was not something
new in the eternal thought of God, but in the days of
Jonah the specific call and commission of that Prophet
was something new. So new and unusual was it that it
startled both Jonah and Israel. In a way it was unheard
of; certainly it was foreign to the ideas of the nation.
It was a break-in, an innovation, a strange thing, a
departure from tradition. While God did not plan or
purpose the disobedience and breakdown of Jonah, in His
foreknowledge and sovereignty He ordered that it should
form the very setting and basis of a miracle which would
give the message and a commission a thousand times more
significance than it otherwise would have held. So deep
and far-seeing are the ways of God! God just rode
roughshod over all the set and fixed ideas of His own
people; over all their notions and settled ways. It was a
new thing in Israel, and that was a part - only a part,
but a strong part - of Jonah's dilemma and difficulty.
Therein is the first
note in his 'Voice'. The whole battle with Judaism in New
Testament times, and, as indicated by our basic phrase
(Acts 13:27), very largely, if not entirely, raged around
this very fact. Stephen was murdered very largely because
of this question. It is
The
Serious Peril of Prejudice
Prejudice in Israel, as
in Christianity, and everywhere, just means and says:
'God must not do that.' It shuts the door to man
and to God.
If the writer may give
his own testimony, for what it is worth, on this point,
he has to say that a very big turning-point in his life
and ministry, from limitation to great enlargement; was
reached at a certain time. One Lord's Day morning I
preached on prejudice. Didn't I slaughter prejudice! I
called it by all the evil names that I could lay my
tongue to. I called it 'the closed, slammed and barred
door against God and man'. Very well! During the
following week I received an invitation to a certain
conference with all expenses paid. I had said long before
that I would never have anything to do with what
that conference stood for; indeed, I would never touch it
at a distance. Well, this very kind and generous
invitation came, and all my prejudice at once looked for
a reason to refuse. I was a very busy man and my diary
was very full of engagements for months ahead. So that
was the first resort, and I did not think that my diary
would let me down for a good excuse. But to my
consternation the only week without appointments for a
long time was the week of that conference! Was there any
other honest excuse for refusing. I could not find one
anywhere or anyhow.
As I sat there with my
problem, it was as though a voice said: 'Now, what about
your sermon on prejudice? You have only two courses open
to you: either to say that you will not go, or
to go; and if you say that you will not, it will
be because of your prejudice!' It was a battle, but the
Lord, and a bit of honesty, won. I went, and although
full of reservations and questions, as I have said, it
was a life-crisis which resulted in a new release of the
Lord. Forgive the personal reference, but it may serve to
give point to the message.
Prejudice can be a
thief and a robber. It can be absolutely disastrous, as
in the case of Israel. Said Nathanael: "Can any good
thing come out of Nazareth?" That was the most
critical point in his whole life, and had he not been an
honest man, 'an Israelite indeed in whom was no guile'
(Jacob), all that was subsequently said of him would have
been lost (John 21:2 and if, as is believed, he was
identical with Bartholomew, Acts 1:4,12,13). How it
becomes us to analyse our prejudices, to see if they are
prejudices or true. Remember, Jesus Himself was
involved in common prejudices, strongly supported and
'documented' by the best authorities, people would
say; but history gives the answer.
2. Prejudice, as in the
case of Jonah, meant an unwillingness to break with the
set ways of Israel. God's dealings with Jonah, and
Jonah's voice among the Prophets is the
Divine
Thunder Against Exclusivism
In Israel, and Jonah,
prejudice was based upon a wrong and false interpretation
of election. Election with them, while being perfectly
true, was interpreted as being a matter of salvation,
whereas, in truth, it was a matter of vocation. They were
it, for time and eternity. They were the first and the
last. All others were hopeless exclusions. "Except
ye be circumcised, you cannot be saved" (Acts
15:1,25). The tragedy, nay, the crime of Israel was
twofold; it misinterpreted their calling and election,
and in so doing made God far, far smaller than He is.
Israel - to them - was a box or cage into which they
forced God and sought to keep Him there. If there is one
thing that the book and history of Jonah says above
everything else, it is that God will shake sea and land
to show that prejudice and exclusivism are a violation of
His nature as "the God of all grace". The
history of all ultra-exclusive movements, related to
God's name, is one of endless divisions, disorders, and
reproach. It is immensely impressive that Jesus - the
full and final expression of God's grace - took up Jonah
after Jonah's death, burial and resurrection, typically.
Israel was indeed chosen, elect, selected, but it was in
order that, by holiness and Godliness of life, of
character, as God's representation, they
might be God's messenger of grace to the nations; that,
in the Seed of Abraham all nations of the earth
should be blessed. This is the vocation of the
Church; but its effective fulfilment waits and depends
upon it being a true representation of God! Jonah
defaulted in the first place. Israel failed finally. The
'Voice' of the Prophet Jonah is a warning.
3. So we come at last
to that full and final voice of Jonah:
"A
Greater Than Jonah is Here"
(Matthew 12:41)
We have said
"Final", and by that we mean when the battle is
over and Jonah - on resurrection ground - truly
represents God. The context of Matthew 12:41 is in verse
40. There, on the one side, is "a wicked and
adulterous generation" the Israel which has lost its
place because it has failed in its vocation (note that!).
In the middle is Jonah as a parable and sign. On the
other side, Jesus; going down into death - on that side
representing that which does not and cannot live before
God, and then, by resurrection, representing that which
is alive unto God for ever. This is the 'Sign'
to Israel, whether historic or spiritual.
This is the voice of
the Prophet Jonah, but it needs more than 359 pages to
exhaust it!