We do know who Jonah was. 2 Kings 14v25 tells us that, like Amos and Hosea, he lived during the reign of King Jeroboam II of Israel. Jonah prophesied the success of that reign in restoring the country’s borders.

Legends tell us that Jonah was son of the widow of Zarephath and if so, the same person would have been raised from the dead and also saved from virtual death inside the big fish. If we love and respect God he will miraculously have His way in our lives. It is often true in the Bible that many great things started with a miracle.

Jonah was asked (v1,2) to go to Nineveh, “that great city”, and cry out against it for their great wickedness. History books tell us that indeed, Nineveh, the capital of Assyria, was one of the greatest cities of the world with amazing architecture, beautiful gardens, impressive wall and moat defences and intellectual advances. Amazingly, its location on the Tigris river was 30 miles long and 10 miles wide.

AWAY FROM GOD’S PRESENCE
Jonah disobeyed the word of the Lord and fled to Tarshish (v3) from the “presence of the Lord”. So it is today, if we Christians go the wrong way, then the end result is that we lose his presence within us; the good news from the book of Jonah is that God will come looking for us. Sometimes we need heavy treatment to take us onto the right path again and little more frightening than this terrible storm that came against the ship (v4). This was the time of the sailors calamity (4-7) and they started crying out to their own gods (v5) but eventually recognised the true God (v16).

Jonah was not ashamed of God and openly explained that he worshipped the Lord, the God of heaven, who made the sea and the dry land (v9). He knew that his actions were the cause of the storm, knew he was wrong and humbly was willing to take the consequence of death-“pick me up and throw me into the sea” (v12). The sailors did everything they could to avoid doing this (v13), rowing their hearts out, but eventually said a prayer and threw him overboard.

GOD PREPARES THE WAY IN OUR LIVES
We know that God had ordered the storm (v4) but we also see that He had prepared the fish (v17). Notice God’s intervention in the life of His servant.

HE WAITS FOR OUR DESPERATION
Jonah called to Him out of his distress (2v2). The Lord is always there at the time of our desperation and He heard Jonah’s voice. But what was Jonah’s greatest sadness (v4); it was not his physical condition, for there is one thing worse than that, separation from His presence (v4). Jonah’s life was ebbing away but he still had access to the presence of the Lord (v7) and he was able to praise God (v9) and renew his vows to the Lord. In that place, he heard a word of deliverance from the Lord, and for once, Jonah’s heart was right, the Lord immediately spoke to the fish (v10) that his job was done and he should spew Jonah upon the dry land.

GOD’S HEART MERCIFUL, SLOW TO ANGER, ABOUNDING IN STEADFAST LOVE
It is wonderful that the Lord gives us second opportunities and here we see that the word of the Lord came to Jonah a second time (3v1). He had a message to take, not a great message for them (v4), but a prophesy that after forty days “Nineveh would be overthrown”. Then a surprising thing happened; the whole city believed, repented and changed their ways, the people and the king himself. They thought, who knows? God may relent and change His mind (v9).  In this they struck an important truth that God loves to forgive, even when the roughest and toughest repent. At the beginning of chapter 4 you see that Jonah knew this because he knew that the heart of God (v2) was to be merciful, slow to anger, abounding in steadfast love and ready to relent from punishing. Jonah, to his credit, had obeyed God even when his own heart was hard. We can see in verse 1 his anger at God’s forgiveness. Man’s heart is much harder than the Lord’s. The Lord isn’t hard on Jonah but just asks the question “Is it right for you to be angry?” (v4).

Why was Jonah so angry? The prophets at the time were saying that the Assyrians would be tools in the Lord’s hand to judge Israel. Perhaps Jonah thought that it would help Israel’s future if Nineveh was destroyed.  You could say that his heart was for God’s kingdom.

Whatever the reason; Jonah, wanting God to finish his life (v3)and sat down outside the city. But you see, God’s heart was softer than Jonah’s, he still wanted to change him and his thinking.

GOD LIKES TO SOFTEN OUR HEARTS
In the same way that God had prepared a big fish for Jonah (1v17) He also prepared a bush (4v6), a worm (v7) and a sultry east wind (v8). These were to show Jonah how he could get things so very wrong and how he should have been far more concerned about the 120,000 people in Nineveh than a bush that grows and dies in a day (v10). Thousands of people had repented and turned to God, Jonah had experienced a great deliverance but God had not finished with him yet. He was still trying to soften his heart. Likewise God has not finished with us!

Many people doubt the story of Jonah, thinking it a kind of fable with a good meaning. Not Jesus, who mentioned Jonah in Matthew 12v38-41. The scribes and Pharisees pushed Jesus for a miracle but Jesus directed their thinking towards the sign of the prophet Jonah. Jonah’s three day stay in the fish’s belly was symbolic of the three day death of Jesus. The people of Jesus’s day would be condemned because even the people of Nineveh repented and Jesus was of far greater authority than Jonah. God is always wanting to soften our heart by showing us our sin and encouraging our repentance.