The book of Jonah is a great story. But God didn't include it in the Bible purely for its entertainment value. There is a point to the story. As I said last week, there's always just one point to a story. But that doesn't mean that we can only learn one thing from the story. There are several things that we have learned already, and there could be, would be much more that we would learn from the book as we continue to read and study and meditate upon it.

So, so far, what have we learned from the book of Jonah? Well, on the positive side of the ledger, we have learned about the sovereignty of God. We've learned about the power of God. We've learned about the persistence of God. We've learned about the providence of God. We've learned about the grace of God. And we also learned about the compassion of God. On the negative side of the ledger, here's what we've learned. We learned that we as Christians struggle with people who are different from us. We have learned that we, Christians, many times struggle with obedience. We, as Christians, many times have a hard time believing that people who are not just like us are worthy of God's grace. For instance, Jonah. One of the big problems Jonah had was that he saw the God of Israel as their God and their God only. And he was upset that the national God of Israel would extend the offer to grace to anyone else. I'm afraid if we are honest, there are times as Christians, we hold that same point of view. "Ah, they are this. I don't want them to have God's grace." Or "They are that. I don't want them to have God's grace." And as I said, I believe, in the very first week that the book of Jonah is a mirror that when we hold it up to ourselves, it clearly reflects our biases and our prejudices.

But there's more to be learned. Is there one big point to the story? And if there is, then how does it apply to us today? Well, to understand the story of Jonah, first of all, we need to understand something of the backstory, if you will. We need to understand something of the historical context of the book. So what are some of the events that in the life of Jonah and the people of Nineveh in the nation of Assyria, the ten northern tribes... What are some of the events that we need to take into account? What are some of the events of Jonah's life that factor in the story? By the way, each and every one of us has a backstory, if you will. There is a context to our life. There's a history to our life. And we're... seemingly fall on two ends of the teeter-totter if you will. Many times people underestimate the effect of the backstory of their life. They downplay it. They don't take it into account. The other extreme is that they overestimate it. They, they give way too much credit to it. We want to try and find a perfect balance. But either way, we are all affected. Our beliefs, our values, to a certain degree, are all shaped by this backstory, the backstory of our lives.

So what was the backstory of Jonah? Well, we've seen this. So just quickly, we'll go through it. Jonah was a prophet of God to the northern tribes of the northern kingdom of Israel. And from what we know of him in the Scriptures, he was a faithful prophet, and he had always been an obedient prophet until God called him to go to Nineveh, but not only do people have a backstory, so do nations and cities. So what would be the backstory for the city of Nineveh? Well, Nineveh was a prominent city in Assyria. Some believe that perhaps it was a capital city of the Assyrian empire. God Himself describes it as a great city. It was great in size. It was great in population, but it was also great in its wickedness. And the wickedness was the reason that God told Jonah to go out, to go to Nineveh, and call out or cry out against it. The nation of Assyria, they have their own backstory as well. And their backstory is one of brutality. They were a people, a conquering people, a warring people, and they went out, and they conquered other countries, and they kept those other countries in line through their violence and through their cruelty. They ruled with fear and violence and intimidation. And then, finally, we have the northern tribes or the ten tribes of Israel. And they shared a border with a territory of Assyria. The northern kingdom was well aware of the brutal reputation of the Assyrians. And the Assyrians would be God's sword that He would use in just a few short decades to put an end to the northern kingdom of Israel.

So the Assyrians were always a threat to Israel. Jonah's hometown was not far from the border. So, imagine the tension. Imagine the fear that Jonah grew up with. From the time he was a little boy, he lived in a town that had to endure the constant threat of invasion and violence from the neighbors from the north. It would be like today, the border of North and South Korea. We have that zone there, and there's always this tension there. You never know what the neighbor to the north is going to do. Well, this is what Jonah grew up with. He grew up with this tension. And he had to surely have heard the stories of how the Assyrians conquered, how they treated people, how they were so brutal, how they cut the thumbs off of people, cut the lips off of people, and cut the heads off of people. Imagine the impact that would have had on him as he grew up hearing those stories time after time after time.

Well, one day God comes to Jonah, and He tells him to go to Nineveh, but Jonah has other ideas. Jonah has a plan of his own, and his plan is to get as far away as possible. So what does he do? He goes, and he buys a ticket. He plans to get on board a ship and go as far away as he can. He tries to go to the far side of the Mediterranean Sea. God allows him to make his way to Joppa. God allows him to buy the ticket. God allows him to get on the boat. Now, there's an important detail in the text that I want to deal with here for just a moment. It tells us that Jonah went down, in chapter one, that went down to Java. And the Bible says that he paid the fare (Jon 1:3). Now, that may seem like an insignificant detail until we stop for just a moment and think about who Jonah was. Who or what was Jonah? He was a prophet. He was a man of God. How do you think a prophet was supported? Primarily, by God's people.

In other words, here's Jonah, using God's money to fund his disobedience. We would liken it to something like this today, that you own a company, and you tell one of your employees to fly to New York City to close the biggest deal in the history of your company. Well, you learn that your employee has taken your company’s credit card. And instead of buying a ticket to New York, they have bought a ticket to Osaka, Japan. And you're upset. And so, you know, by the time that they land in Japan, they're going to have a message on their phone. And as soon as they take their phone off of airplane mode, guess what? You're going to give them what for. You're going to let them know exactly how they feel. There's a pretty good chance you're going to fire that employee. Well, Jonah is just like a bad employee. He used God's money to go against God's will. He used God's money to fund his disobedience. So, we have to ask ourselves, why did God insist on using Jonah? Why didn't he just let him go? Why didn't he just say, "You're fired. I'll go find somebody else."?

So God lets Jonah board the boat. He lets the ship set sail. God lets the boat get out to sea, and then God acts. What's He do? He sends a storm. What a storm it was. It's the... Bible tells us that the sailors were deathly afraid. They were so afraid that they began to pray (Jon 1:5). But guess who's not praying? So-called man of God, the prophet of God. He's nowhere to be found. He's below deck. He's taking a little nap. The question comes to my mind again, why did God insist on using Jonah? The sailors begin to cast lots. The lot was used to determine why they were in trouble, who was a source of their trouble. And you know the story. The lot falls on Jonah (Jon 1:7). So what does he do? He kind-of answers their questions and he says, "Hey, if you want to escape, if you want to save your life, here's what you need to do. You need to pick me up, you need to throw me overboard." They didn't want to do that. So what did they do? They tried to step up their game. They thought that more human effort would be able to save the day, so all their strength and all their skill they applied to try to get back to dry land. But, ultimately, they saw that it was futile. All human effort was futile in the face of God's power. So what did they do? They finally consented. And I do believe somewhat reluctantly, they picked up Jonah, and they threw him overboard. And the farther he sank, the calmer the winds became. And by the time he was out of sight, they were out of danger.

Next thing Jonah knew, he had been swallowed by a great fish. It's interesting. The Bible says that the fish was actually appointed by God to be at that place at that time for that very purpose (Jon 1:17 a). In other words, God was not going to let Jonah die. God's plan was for Jonah to go to Nineveh, and Jonah was going to go to Nineveh. So, Jonah spends three days and three nights in the belly of the fish. Just use your imagination, and try and place yourself in his position. It had to be dark. It had been incredibly slimy. It had to be somewhat uncomfortable and cold. Imagine the smell. Imagine the constant motion of the fish as it swam through the sea. I don't think it just laid there like a blob, do you? It was a fish. What do fish do? They swim. This man... He's in, in this fish that swims mile after mile. And imagine the pain Jonah must have experienced as this great fish would dive deep into the seas and rapidly come back to the surface. Say, "Why would that cause Jonah pain?" Do we have any scuba divers in the house? One of the perils of scuba diving is if you go down too deep and come up too fast, you get