Old Testament - Jonah 1-4 - November 21, 2022

 11/21/2022 – Jonah 1-4

It’s quite worrisome to me to have so many of the books of the Old Testament that are concentrated toward groups of people who are NOT following the Lord’s commandments. In this particular case, Jonah is called of God to call the people of Nineveh to repentance. 

Jonah doesn’t respond as so many of those whom the Lord called to preach to the people did. Jonah’s particular call is to “arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and cry against it; for their wickedness is come up before me.” (1:1) Jonah did arise, but he worked hard to go the opposite direction from Nineveh. He paid for space on a ship going to Tarshish. In the middle of that trip “…the Lord sent out a great wind into the sea, and there was a mighty tempest in the sea, so that the ship was like to be broken.” (1:4) The sailors asked all to pray--each to their god. Jonah did not do that, because he had gone down to the bottom of the ship and was sleeping. I wonder if this was an attempt at avoidance of the work he was afraid to do, or was it simply deep depression. I know that the times in my life that I have fallen into depression, are also the times I was not studying the scriptures regularly, and not praying on a daily basis.

The sailors decided to case lots to determine just who had brought this unbelievable weather on them, and the lot fell on Jonah. (v 7) Jonah knew he was not following the Lord’s direction, and he knew he could not place in danger the rest of those on the ship where the almost certain shipwreck  would happen, so Jonah asked the men to cast him over the side of the ship. The sailors refused to throw Johan to a certain death, so they rowed with all their might, but as hard as they rowed, they could not bring the ship to a shore. They had to cast Jonah over the side of the ship as he had said, and they prayed to not have Jonah’s death on their hands. They threw him over the side and Jonah found that “the Lord had prepared a great fish to swallow him up, for Jonah was now in the belly of the fish three days and three nights.” (1:17)

Jonah tells us that after being in the belly of the fish, “….my soul fainted within me I remembered the Lord: and my prayer came in unto thee…” (2:7) There will never be a situation where we will not be able to call upon the Lord in prayer!

In chapter 3 the Lord speaks once again to Jonah (now on dry ground). The Lord tells Jonah, once again, that he is to “arise, go unto Nineveh…and preach unto it the preaching that I bid thee”. (3:2) \

V 2 tells us that “Jonah arose, and went unto Nineveh, telling them that in 40 days, Nineveh will be overthrown. The town’s reaction was to have everyone in Nineveh hold a fast, and began working on their repentance. V 10: “And God saw their works, that they turned from their evil way...”

In chapter 4, we see another one of Jonah’s weaknesses. The Lord saw that all the people in Nineveh had immediately followed His directions and humbled themselves, and turned back to Him; because of that the Lord would not bring any harm to them. He would continue to be with them.  But Jonah seems to have forgotten that he had run from the Lord because when he decided to finally do what the Lord had asked, he found that the Lord was upset that it took Jonah so long to finally do what the Lord had asked. Jonah had not followed through on His promises of destroying Nineveh, but he learned that the Lord wanted him to do the work he had been asked to do.

Here's what happened: Chapter 1: God calls Jonah to preach to Nineveh about their disobedience to His commandments. Chapter 2: Jonah repents in the middle of a terrible storm, but he is put out because the people of Nineveh were not destroyed.  But then, Jonah is ‘saved’ from a terrible tempest by being swallowed by a huge fish. He is thankful he was saved, but he was angry because of the mercy the Lord had shown to the people of Ninevah.

Whenever we do work for the Lord, we are blessed. If we don’t recognize those blessings, then we’d better go to the Lord in prayer---and then listen, while working to learn from Him.

Elder Uchtdorf spoke about the problems that Jonah had a hard time understanding. Here’s what Elder Uchtdorf said: “When it comes to hating, gossiping, ignoring, ridiculing, holding grudges, or wanting to cause harm, please apply the following: “Stop it! “It’s that simple. We simply have to stop judging others and replace judgmental thoughts and feelings with a heart full of love for God and His children. . . . “Because we all depend on the mercy of God, how can we deny to others any measure of the grace we so desperately desire for ourselves? . . . “The pure love of Christ can remove the scales of resentment and wrath from our eyes, allowing us to see others the way our Heavenly Father sees us: as flawed and imperfect mortals who have potential and worth far beyond our capacity to imagine. Because God loves us so much, we too must love and forgive each other.”