Jonah 1:1-3 Ordination of a Prodigal

“Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and cry out against it; for their wickedness has come up before Me. But Jonah arose to flee to Tarshish from the presence of the LORD. He went down to Joppa …”

While Webster’s dictionary defines the word, ‘prodigal,’ as recklessly extravagant and lavish, we have come to most readily associate the word “prodigal” with Jesus’ Parable of the Prodigal Son in Luke 15:11-32. While the term prodigal most accurately describes the lavish mercy of the father in the parable, we nevertheless use the term to describe the son, who recklessly squandered his father’s inheritance. Today, the term has come to describe the proverbial prodigal child, who runs away from home, in the end to return. In this way, we can consider Jonah a prodigal prophet.

The word of the LORD came to Jonah. It came with clarity and heavy responsibility. God called him to “arise and go to Nineveh,” and “cry out against it.” The prophet unquestionably heard the call, but he responded by arising, and instead of going to Nineveh, fleeing to Tarshish from the presence of the LORD. He had no difficulty understanding the call, yet he likely excused his direct disobedience amidst a flurry of ministry activity. Perhaps Jonah’s speedy flight to Joppa was interpreted by others around him as a mission trip itself. But only Jonah and God knew otherwise.

What could Jonah mean when he tells us that he was fleeing, “from the presence of the LORD?” Surely he knew what David did (Ps 139:1-12) that God was omnipresent, and it is impossible to go anywhere away from His presence. What Jonah meant by this was that his flight was from God’s will and calling; he was fleeing from where prayer revealed would be his place service. At a great expense, Jonah endeavored to go as far
as he could in the opposite direction of God’s revealed calling, thinking that he might be able to push the haunting voice of God to the back of His mind. But he would soon learn that even if he should make his bed in hell, God is there (Ps 139:8)!

Jonah’s flight from his Father was met with much peril. Fleeing the fullness of joy that comes with God’s presence, Jonah instead first reaped a great storm which threatened his ship and the lives of many men, and then a great fish which became his cramped, soggy and smelly home for 3 days and 3 nights. But, not willing that Jonah should perish, the One who has been called ‘the hound of heaven,’ with an unhurried and deliberate pace, pursued this fleeing soul with divine mercy and grace. Though Jonah sought to hide himself, which is the tendency of all men since the fall, divine grace unwearyingly followed after, until his soul was compelled to return to God’s presence. As Martin Luther commented, “Not only the ship, but the whole world becomes too small for Jonah … He finds no nook or corner in all creation, not even in hell, where he might crawl in.” There is never a place of safety away from God’s presence, where we may be left in ‘superficial peace.’

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Jonah: An Introduction to a Prodigal God with Prodigal Mercy

Now the Word of the Lord came to Jonah …

With all of its drama and extraordinary events, people have become fascinated with the story of Jonah. Whether from coloring books or children’s story Bibles, from childhood, the tale of a man swallowed by a great fish and regurgitated alive, 3 days later, has captured our imagination! Yet how many, knowing the story so well, know the true import and significance of Jonah?

For one thing the book of Jonah is biographical. Jonah was a historical figure sent on a particular mission from God to reach a specific group of people. So broadly Jonah will bring us face to face with missions and evangelism. Then, as one who ran away from his calling and mission, Jonah will provide a mirror into our own heart and its propensity to wander from God’s call. As Jonah’s journey is traced, we see the inner workings of his heart – his fears, his motivations, his moods – with which we can identify and learn from his example. Yet there is still an even greater value to studying the book of Jonah.

Jonah has significance far greater than God’s localized concern for Nineveh. The book is not about a great fish! Neither is Jonah ultimately about the man who wrote it. Also, it is more than a guide to overseas missions for Christian evangelists. And while we will learn about ourselves, Jonah is about so much more. The book of Jonah is primarily about Jonah’s God. We will learn more about God and His mercy and His dealings with His people in Jonah than we will about Jonah himself, or our own self. In Jonah the doctrine of God and the depth of His mercy come alive in the experience of this man. Jonah is a vital link in the history of redemption as it reveals to us the unfolding purposes of God and His prodigal loving mercy for a prophet and a people.

Ephesians: A Disappointing Epilogue Revelation 2:1-7

Nevertheless I have this against you, that you have left your first love. Revelation 2:4

With all of the highly exalted doctrine, majestic Christology, and practical teaching on church and family life, contained in Paul’s epistle to the Ephesian church, we might expect the church at Ephesus to have become the strongest in all of Asia, as they read, digested, exposited, and lived this epistle. And indeed as the risen Jesus Christ appeared to John on the island of Patmos dictating His final inspired message to the seven churches, he commended the church of Ephesus to be much about the Father’s business: they are strong in upholding God’s holiness in their midst; they are quick to recognize false apostles and false teaching; they have persevered and have patience, and have labored for Christ’s name sake and have not become weary (Rev 2:1-3).

Nevertheless, Jesus had a very important indictment against them that strikes at the heart of what it means to be a Christian – they had left their first love. (Rev 2:4). Somehow they had fallen from the early heights of their devotion to Jesus Christ and descended to the plains of mediocrity. As Jesus prophesied, “the love of many will grow cold” (Mt 24:12), sad to say, this was true of the Ephesians. What a disappointing end for a church to whom much was given!

Without our first love, the work, ministry, holiness, and doctrinal purity of the church is lifeless. It is significant that 30 years prior to this message, Paul ended the epistle to the church with a prayer for those “who love our Lord Jesus Christ with love undying” (Eph 6:24). By now, a new generation had arisen whose love was faltering, weakened, and dying. They toiled with vigor but not with love; they put the message of their teachers to the test, but without love. Their orthodoxy and orthopraxy had become cold and dead, without the warmth which comes with love for Christ.

Has this not been a pattern in the church over and over again? Wherever there have been revivals of great doctrinal truths, have they not often fizzled out into disappointingly cold dead religion? Just a look at much of Presbyteriansm and Lutheranism today is evidence of how revivals and reformation end up dying. And we are not exempt from this. Just as Jesus warned the Ephesians, He warns us as well, that unless we remember, repent, and resume our first works, that He will remove our lampstand from its place (Rev 2:5). No individual church has a secure and permanent place in God’s kingdom on earth. If we can judge by the letter that Ignatius wrote to the Ephesian church in the second Century, they heeded Christ’s appeal, as he wrote of them in glowing terms; however, by the Middle Ages, it lapsed again and was all but obliterated.

To this warning, Christ adds a promise to the penitent. To him who overcomes I will give to eat from the tree of life, which is in the midst of the Paradise of God (Rev 2:7). The church has a mission and a work to be done, we have a fight to be fought and creed to be defended, but above all we have a Person to love with love incorruptible. May ours be a church not only about the Father’s business, but continually repenting and burning ever hotter in our love for Jesus Christ.

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Psalm 133 Dwelling in Unity

Behold, how good and pleasant it is when brothers dwell in unity!
It is like the precious oil on the head,
running down on the beard,
on the beard of Aaron,
running down on the collar of his robes!
It is like the dew of Hermon,
which falls on the mountains of Zion!
For there the LORD has commanded the blessing,
life forevermore. (Psalm 133)

Psalm 133 is one of the “Songs of Ascent,” a section of the Psalms stretching from Psalm 120-134. While the precise meaning of this title is not certain, the likely function of these songs was to be recited as the Jewish people ascended the hill of Jerusalem to celebrate the annual festivals. King David, who inherited a divided kingdom, may have written this Psalm when he began his reign in Jerusalem. As the people poured into the holy city in anticipation of the sacred feasts, they set up tents that spilled down the hillsides like the oil that spilled down the robe of Aaron the high priest. The sight of all these people, diverse in many ways, yet united on a common pilgrimage, caused the Psalmist to reflect on unity as “good and pleasant.”

Unity is “good and pleasant” indeed. It is good in that it is fruitful, like the dew of Mt. Hermon. It is pleasant in that unity implies peace between individuals. This peace is only possible because we have peace with God through the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. The oil used to anoint a priest like Aaron symbolized his consecration unto God. Unity consecrates us to God’s service. Intriguingly, the term “anointed one” in the Bible is where we get the word Messiah, and its New Testament equivalent, Christ.

A truly Messianic or Christian church is one that is united; this unity is a chief, God-ordained way in which we display Christ to the world. Any threat to the unity of God’s people is a threat to the very gospel that unites us. The Puritan John Flavel remarked, “What! At peace with the Father, and at war with His children? It cannot be.” Let us endeavor to dwell together in unity!