Lecture on Jonah

Remember this is geared to 6-13 year olds.

Have you ever felt sick to your stomach, not because you were ill, but because you KNEW you needed to do something, but didn’t want to? Maybe you broke something and you didn’t want to tell your mom, or you were mean to your brother, and didn’t want to apologize, even though you knew you were wrong? Something like that happened to Jonah, a prophet of Israel. What made him feel sick to his stomach was so bad, it made him try to run away from God. God told Jonah to go to Nineveh, a big city in Assyria, to tell the people there that they needed to listen to God. Were the nations of Assyria and Israel friends? No, they weren’t. Jonah knew that the people in Nineveh did evil things and he selfishly did not want them to have the blessings of God.

Jonah was already about 500 miles away from Nineveh, but he started on a journey that would take him about 2500 miles from Nineveh, about as far as we are from Los Angeles, California. Jonah was trying to run away from God so that he wouldn’t have to preach to the people of Nineveh. He got on a boat and started to sail in the opposite direction from Nineveh and he went to sleep. While he was sleeping, God created a huge storm and it really scared the sailors on the boat. They were all experienced sailors, so it probably took a lot to scare them. They all prayed to their false gods and tried to get the storm to stop. After a while, they went and asked Jonah to pray to his God, too. The sailors also cast lots to determine who was responsible for causing the storm. What does that mean, to “cast lots”? It’s a random way to pick an answer for a question. These sailors didn’t think it was random, though, and God made sure it wasn’t! They decided it was Jonah’s fault for the big storm, and he agreed that it was. He told them to throw him overboard to save the ship. The sailors didn’t want to send him to a certain death, but eventually did as Jonah said. When the sailors threw Jonah overboard, the storm stopped and the sailors praised God and offered Him a sacrifice.

Jonah was in the rough water, all alone, and very far from land. He would surely die. In fact, we are told that waves swept over him and that seaweed was wrapped around his head. But God provided for Jonah even in the depth of the sea. A huge fish came and swallowed Jonah up. That saved him from drowning, and Jonah was very grateful. We could think about being in a fish belly as being a type of punishment, but it was actually God showing love to Jonah, by rescuing him and preventing him from drowning. While Jonah was in the big fish, he prayed to God and thanked Him for the fish and told God that he would do whatever God told him to do. Then the fish threw him up onto dry land.

So now Jonah was back where he started, having to go to Nineveh. But this time he went. He told the people of Nineveh that God would destroy them all in 40 days. And the people of Nineveh listened! What did they do to show sorrow for their actions? They fasted, went without food and water, and they wore sackcloth, the rough, scratchy fabric people wore when they were mourning. The king ordered that all the people do this, and that they change their ways. God saw this, and had compassion on the people of Nineveh. He did not destroy them.
Is our story over? No! Jonah had done what God told him to do, and the results were good; the people changed their ways. But Jonah was not happy. He didn’t think the people of Nineveh, the enemies of Israel, should have God’s favor shown on them. Jonah said that was why he didn’t want to go in the first place, because he didn’t think the people of Nineveh were deserving of God. But God told Jonah that there were over 120 thousand people who didn’t know their right hand from their left and that He was concerned about them. What did God mean, can’t tell their right hand from their left? That meant that they did not know about God. But God still cared about them, even though they didn’t know Him, because He created them, just like He has created all people on this earth.

So next time you get a weird feeling in the pit of your stomach, ask yourself if God is telling you to do something. It might be to confess or apologize to someone. Or it could be to tell someone about Jesus. That is what happened to my friend Carol. When she was 12 years old, she knew that God was telling her to speak with a 17 year old boy about Jesus. She didn’t want to, and even made herself sick. Finally, she went and spoke to her pastor, and they prayed about it. Then she spoke to the older boy. He gave his heart to the Lord that day. God used Carol. When Carol obeyed, instead of fighting God, God used her to lead someone to Christ.