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Jonah and the Judgment Prophets

CONNIE: Have you ever had a task to do that made you want to jump overboard instead of doing it? Join us today as we look at the story of Jonah, and the Judgment Prophets. Giving God's trumpet a Certain Sound for more than 70 years, this is the Voice of Prophecy.

CONNIE: Hello, I'm Connie Jeffery,

LONNIE: and I'm Lonnie Melashenko. Well, Connie, we've looked at the stories and messages of quite a few prophets already as we've been progressing through the Old Testament. But today we come to the life of the only one who ever went overboard.

CONNIE: That would be Jonah, of course. And he didn't exactly go overboard for the Lord, did he?

LONNIE: Well, no, as everyone who's heard the story knows, Jonah ended up being thrown off the ship he was on because he was fleeing from the Lord, not because he was following the Lord.

CONNIE: Imagine--a prophet who thought he could get away from God by hopping a ship bound for Tarshish. Jonah may have known the Lord on one level, but there was one thing missing from his knowledge of God--the fact that you can't run away from Him.

LONNIE: At least not and get away with it! God is everywhere, and He cares enough about us to pursue us--even when we think we'd rather not have Him around.

CONNIE: And even when Jonah ended up going overboard--getting himself tossed into a stormy ocean--God was there--He had already prepared a fish to rescue Jonah and give him a ride back to land.

LONNIE: In our program today, we won't take much time looking at the story of Jonah--we're going to turn our focus instead to the message of Jonah and other prophets like him, and we've invited a man with special expertise in the messages of the prophets as well as in the mission of Christians to share his insights into the mission of Jonah and his colleagues among the minor prophets of the Old Testament.

CONNIE: Let's listen in as Ken Wade speaks with Dr. Jon Dybdahl.

KEN: Dr. Jon Dybdahl, I just want to welcome you here to our program today.

JON: Thank you.

KEN: Dr. Dybdahl is the chairman of the department of world missions at the Seventh Day Adventist Seminary, at Andrews University, and Jon my wife and I have spent a little time with you there before we moved to Singapore a few years back.

JON: Yes.

KEN: Got some good instruction in cross-culture sharing the gospel, and I appreciated that. Of course you have been over there in the Far East quite a bit yourself.

JON: Right.

KEN: Now today of course we're talking about some of the minor prophets, and I've used a book that you wrote a few years ago, one of the Bible Amplifier series, as I've been studying this. Tell me something, Jon, as we talk about these Minor Prophets, who are we talking about? What people are we talking about here?

JON: Well they're really not so minor when you come to think of their influence on Israel, and they're only called minor in the Bible because they are short. They're men who had a very radical message of renewal to people.

KEN: They came along with a message of reform.

JON: That's right, they saw a lot of needs, they saw a decline in the kingdoms of Israel and Judah in connection with religion and social issues as well, and they felt God had a special message for them and they gave it with vigor.

KEN: Now tell me when you picture these fellows, how do you see them, kind of wild eyed and walking around in camel's hair garb or something, what do you see?

JON: Well maybe they looked that way kind of to some of the people, but they came from all walks of life, and so I think they were probably looked at as kind of rabble-rousers, and people who really weren't afraid to speak out clearly, and were not afraid to disrupt the status quo.

KEN: If they had been down in Washington D.C they wouldn't have necessarily been very popular in the White House type of thing.

JON: They probably were not campaigning for office.

KEN: They in fact, well I can remember some of them being totally on outs with the political leadership.

JON: That's right. Usually the establishment didn't like them because they questioned some of the things that were happening, and some of the things that the rulers and the majority were doing.

KEN: As the administrators often don't like anyone who shakes things up. The prophets often got themselves into a bit of trouble. Tell me though about Jonah. He is an interesting fellow. He kind of broadens this idea of prophecy, doesn't he?

JON: Well God sends him to Nineveh, which is in the country of Assyria, the biggest enemy that Israel had at that time. So he is kind of special, but you do have even in prophets like Isaiah and Jeremiah sections of those prophecies that relate to other nations. New but not entirely new.

KEN: This is a different type of prophet though, I mean we think back to Moses who is called a prophet, even Abraham is called a prophet. In the time of David you have Nathan, and before that you have Samuel, you have Elijah and Elisha a bit later. These prophets are a little different types aren't they?
JON: Yeah, I think that prophecy operates somewhat similarly, but the historical situation kind of governs the role that God has them play. God has them play whatever role at that particular time in history that's needed, and those people were basically helping to establish Israel, while these later prophets were called really to reform Israel.

KEN: So the earlier ones like Samuel, this is when the nation is being built up, but by the time we get to these men whose prophecies are at the end of the Old Testament, the kingdom is in decline.

JON: Right. I can call the earlier ones maybe establishment prophets, and these are destablishment prophets.

KEN: They're trying to reform things so things won't, so as badly as there going. What are some of the major sins that the prophets point out, what are the problems?

JON: Well, certainly one of them has to do with social issues, Amos in particular is very famous for calling to task those who were wealthy and not considering the poor. Religious smugness, where you think that because you're following the rules and doing the ceremonies that you're all okay with God. Of course idolatry fits in there, people who have had a former religion but their heart is not changed, all these are things that the prophets speak directly too.

KEN: Now I think that some people as they get to the end of the Old Testament and they read these prophetic messages, they're a bit put off by it because these messages are often very harsh aren't they? Couldn't they have said something a little bit nicer, like "Well maybe you guys should straighten up a little bit", instead of coming along and saying, "If you don't straighten out you're going to all be carried away captive, and your heads chopped off," and all that sort of thing?

JON: I think part of it is, you know you have to do what you have to do to try and get a hearing, and maybe in a time of lethargy you need something like that, I don't know. But it also seems to me to speak partly to the desperation, God wants people to know that times are serious, and that somebody's about ready to get killed, and you need to say it in a way that vividly demonstrates what is about to happen and the nations are about ready to die, and so there is a sense in which they just need a real wake up call.

KEN: If the house is on fire you don't ring the doorbell and say, "excuse me your house is on fire", you start shouting don't you. Well Dr. Dybdahl I thank you for your insights, and we're going to talk to again in a couple of weeks when we are dealing with some of the other prophets, thanks so much for joining us.

JON: It's a privilege to be with you, thank you Ken.

LONNIE: You know, when you really care about someone, and you see them in danger, you can't just stand by and watch. You've got to shout a warning. And that's what we see happening in the messages of the Old Testament prophets. God's love compels Him to shout a warning to those who are going down the wrong path.

CONNIE: Now, we've chosen a song to follow up on that interview about Jonah and the other prophets that might now seem to fit with our program's topic at first. But think about it as you listen--I think you'll see how it fits.

"O Love That Will Not Let Me Go", King's Heralds, from VOP Music Library

CONNIE: That's a beautiful song, sung by the King's Heralds. What about it Lonnie--did you see how it fits with our program?

LONNIE: Well, I have to admit that at first it didn't seem to fit. But when you think about it--that's what the story of Jonah is really about, isn't it? A God who loves His prophet so much that He just can't let him get away with running away!

CONNIE: And the message of Jonah and the other prophets is a message that cries out from the loving heart of God--I just can't let you go down that wrong path without warning you!

LONNIE: God has used strong men and women throughout history to proclaim His love for the world in no uncertain terms. And we have a new book we've not offered before called Still Standing True that looks into the lives of some of God's faithful witnesses.

CONNIE: We'd like you to have a copy, and it's yours for the asking, if you'll give us a call this week at 1-800-872-0055. And we'll share our mailing address a bit later, but right now, let's listen to Lonnie's message "Jonah and the Judgment Prophets."

Jonah and the Judgment Prophets

Put yourself in Jonah's shoes--or sandals if you will--for just a moment. You already know the story of Jonah and the whale--but do you know "the rest of the story"? I'm talking about the story found in 2 King 14:25. Here it is:
"[King Jeroboam] restored the territory of Israel from the entrance of Hamath to the Sea of the Arabah, according to the word of the Lord God of Israel, which He had spoken through His servant Jonah the son of Amittai, the prophet who was from Gath Hepher." (2 Kings 14:25, NKJV)

This simple verse reveals something very important about Jonah. He had a successful ministry as a prophet of the Lord before his call to Nineveh.
Jonah lived not long after the great prophet Elisha--and if you know your Bible history, you remember that the kings of Israel often consulted with prophets in those days, prior to going to war. The word of the Lord that came to Elisha often helped the king avoid being ambushed by the armies sent against him. It happened so many times, in fact, that the king of Aram finally got frustrated. He started to think there was a spy in his counsel of war--someone who heard his plans and told them to the king of Israel.

But when he called his officers together to inquire about this, they told him that the problem wasn't with his counselors--the problem was with Elisha: " 'Elisha, the prophet who is in Israel, tells the king of Israel the very words you speak in your bedroom,' " they said (2 Kings 6:12, NIV).

Even these heathen warlords became aware of how God was using His prophet to help His people.

And apparently the same sort of thing was going on with Jonah. But the stories of how he helped the king of Israel defeat his enemies aren't recorded in the Bible. We only have this one little verse that says that King Jeroboam expanded the territory of Israel "according to the word of the Lord God of Israel, which He had spoken through His servant Jonah." But it tells us a lot about Jonah--allowing us to understand what may have been going through his mind when the Lord called him to deliver another message.

But this time the address on the envelope isn't Samaria--where the Israelite king lived. It's Nineveh--the capital of the powerful and notoriously-cruel Assyrian Empire.

And the message isn't a friendly one. It's not one of those "If you do this, you'll escape your enemies" type admonitions. Uh-uh. This time it's a message of judgment: "God has taken note of your wickedness, and He's going to destroy your city unless you repent!"

That's not an easy message to deliver, even in a friendly environment. But just imagine that you're given a message like that and told to deliver it to someone like--say--Adolph Hitler, or maybe Josef Stalin.

Can you understand now, why Jonah turned tail and headed the opposite direction?

It's not easy being a prophet of judgment.

And yet God, in His mercy, often sends prophets with negative, hard-to-accept messages as a warning before His judgments are poured out.
Zephaniah is another prophet who had a hard message like this to deliver. Listen to these words from Zephaniah 1:2-4

" 'I will utterly consume everything from the face of the land,' says the Lord; 'I will consume man and beast; I will consume the birds of the heavens, the fish of the sea, and the stumbling blocks along with the wicked. I will cut off man from the face of the land,' says the Lord. 'I will stretch out My hand against Judah, and against all the inhabitants of Jerusalem. I will cut off every trace of Baal from this place, the names of the idolatrous priests with the pagan priests' " (Zephaniah 1:2-4, NKJV).

Those are pretty strong words for a prophet to deliver--especially as the opening salvo in his message from the Lord. But Zephaniah, looking around at the evil, idolatry, and injustice that had taken hold of God's people under a succession of faithless kings, knew that smooth words just would not do. Under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, he spoke out and called a spade a spade!

But did it do any good?

And what about Jonah's message of impending judgment--did it do any good?
Ahh--here's where a little understanding of Bible history comes in handy.
Because the answer is Yes!

Zephaniah, you see, prophesied early in the reign of King Josiah in Jerusalem. At age eight, Josiah inherited a kingdom that had gone astray for many years under the leadership of his grandfather Manasseh. But Josiah's young mind was receptive to the message of men like Zephaniah. Second Chronicles tells us that "in the eighth year of his reign, while he was still young, [Josiah] began to seek the God of his father David; and in the twelfth year he began to purge Judah and Jerusalem of the high places, the wooden images, the carved images, and the molded images" (2 Chron. 34:3, NKJV).

The message of Zephaniah--though it may seem rather harsh to our modern ears--served its purpose. And let me hasten to add that the message wasn't all condemnation and judgment. Far from it. At the end of his message, the prophet looks forward to what will happen if the people repent and turn back to God:

"In that day it shall be said to Jerusalem: "Do not fear; Zion, let not your hands be weak. The Lord your God in your midst, the Mighty One, will save; he will rejoice over you with gladness, he will quiet you with His love, he will rejoice over you with singing" (Zephaniah 3:16-17, NKJV).

What a contrast! This is what God wants to do for His people--if only they'll turn back to Him. And when King Josiah repented and turned the people to the Lord, blessings followed. His kingdom expanded, and the nation entered a time of prosperity.

And what about Jonah?

Well--you remember the story, don't you?

Poor Jonah--he'd been a successful prophet for many years, giving good counsel. Counsel that led to prosperity for the kingdom. But then God gave him another mission: Take a judgment message to the wicked, cruel people of Assyria.

Jonah didn't like that assignment. In fact, he did everything he could to avoid it. Worse yet, he decided he'd rather be unemployed than do what his boss--the Lord--was asking him to do. Jonah 1:3 says, "But Jonah arose to flee to Tarshish from the presence of the Lord" (NKJV).
He was supposed to go to Iraq to deliver a stormy message, but he decided to head for the sunny beaches of Southern Spain instead. Maybe he could escape from God there--or at least forget about that troublesome message there…

But Jonah was about to learn that you can't get away from God that easily. Maybe he thought that God would leave him alone if he just got away from Israel. But soon after he got on the cruise ship, headed for the Riviera, things started to go wrong. A huge storm came up, and everyone on board started praying for deliverance--except for Jonah. Jonah didn't want anything more to do with God, and he tried to sleep right through the storm. But soon the heathen crew was demanding that he pray.

Jonah recognized that the storm was God's way of stopping him from fleeing, but he decided he'd rather die than do God's will! So he had himself thrown overboard.

And that's when things got really interesting! The storm ceased, right away--and that led the sailors to worship the Lord. Do you see what's happening here? Jonah became a witness for the Lord in spite of himself! And then of course there was the matter of the fish that saved his life and returned him to dry land.

What a miracle!

And Jonah ended up going to Nineveh after all.

And the Ninevites ended up responding to his message, repenting, and averting the disaster that God had said would come upon them.
Here's something interesting from the history books: We know that about this time, the kingdom of Assyria was under grave threat from a powerful kingdom to their north.

And we also know that in the year 763 BC there was a solar eclipse--which was regarded by the ancients as a fearful omen. The eclipse was followed by a serious plague that greatly weakened the empire. It just may be that Jonah appeared on the scene at that very time--when the people would be most receptive to a warning message like his.

At any rate, we know that the whole city responded with repentance--even the king in his palace. According to Jonah 3:6, when Jonah's message reached the king of Nineveh, "he arose from his throne and laid aside his robe, covered himself with sackcloth and sat in ashes," and made a proclamation that everyone in the city should "turn from his evil way and from the violence that is in his hands" in hopes that the Lord would turn away from them and not destroy their city (Jonah 3:6, 8, NKJV).

And when that happened, God did relent. He didn't destroy the city--at least not at that time. Jonah's message of judgment made a tremendous difference for the people of Nineveh--because they accepted it and repented.
A century and a half later, the prophet Nahum had a similar message for Assyria. But this time there was no repentance. In fact, within just a few years of Nahum's message, Assyria declined from her moment of greatest glory to a has-been. Nineveh was sacked and destroyed in a violent orgy of vengeance by nations that had suffered much under Assyrian rule.

In our program today, we're looking at some of the toughest reading in the entire Bible--the messages of prophets who had heavy, judgmental messages to deliver.

But I hope you've noticed something important about these heavy, hard-to-hear messages: They made a difference. They changed things. Which tells me this: Sometimes we have to go through pain and judgment before things can get better.

Thank God for men like Zephaniah and Nahum who had the courage to deliver these hard messages. Thank God for His patience with Jonah--for working a miracle to make it possible for him to fulfill the mission he had been given.

And you know what that says to me? Good News! Lonnie, hang in there in tough times. Be of good courage. 'Cause God's being awfully patient with you! Thank God He still cares about us today. Yes. He may have hard messages for us at times. He may allow us to pass through trials or difficulties. But if--like the people of Nineveh and Jerusalem--we'll respond by turning to the Lord, He's promised to pour out blessings on us, as we walk with Him.

Just remember, whatever your situation today, whatever trial you may face--take courage in the words of Zephaniah: "The Lord your God in your midst, the Mighty One, will save; he will rejoice over you with gladness, he will quiet you with His love, he will rejoice over you with singing" (Zephaniah 3:16-17, NKJV).

"I Will Bring You Home", Ralph Henderson and John Osborne.