Title Exposition of the Book of Jonah (8)
Contents
Jonah 3:4-10
1. If there is a flower in the life of faith, it is obedience.
The fruit of faith comes through obedience. No matter how much you know the Word and receive a lot of training, if there is no obedience, your faith will bear no fruit. The fruits of Bible study and discipleship training can be reaped through obedience. So, among God's training, the last training is the training for obedience.
God created the Garden of Eden and allowed Adam to enjoy all the good things of Eden. You only forbid one thing. It was not to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Why did you create the tree of knowledge? God wanted to know if Adam obeyed God's Word. And I wanted to teach that human beings are not God, but God's creatures, beings who must obey God's Word. But Adam disobeyed God's Word. As a result, mankind fell into the abyss of misery.
God told Noah to build an ark to judge the world with a flood in 120 years. Noah obeyed what was beyond human comprehension. So, they built the ark silently for 120 years. God obeyed when he told Abraham to leave the land, his relatives, and his father's house and go to the land that I would show you. Even when he was asked to sacrifice his only son, Isaac, he obeyed. A life of faith is a life of obedience.
Even Jonah was not obedient at first. disobeyed. Disobedience is against the will of God. This explains how foolish it is to go against the will of God. When sailing, if you sail with your back to the wind, the ship will go faster. However, sailing in a headwind is difficult. There are times when we meet low tide while swimming in the sea. Trying to swim back to the white sand at low tide is said to be impossible. It is said that no matter how hard you try, you are gradually moving away from the land.
Disobedience is like this. Like rowing against the wind, like swimming toward the land at low tide, it is reckless and hard work. Life is difficult if you try to live in disobedience to God. It is difficult for children to write. And it burns easily. Because they are trying to live in opposition to God. But the obedient is the opposite. Life is easy. It's comfortable. Because we leave it up to God to lead us. I wish you a life of obedience.
2. Barriers of Obedience
But obedience is also difficult. There are barriers. So people don't obey. What are the barriers to obedience? What keeps you from obeying?
1) Fear.
Obedience is a decision of faith. Obedience means trusting and trusting God even though it is not humanly calculated. But when I think about it as a human being, it scares me.
The first is people's gaze and evaluation.
What will people really say about me? Would you say it's stupid? Would you say I'm crazy? There is a fear of being evaluated by such people.
Second, there is the fear of persecution and danger.
Nineveh was the capital of the Assyrian Empire that ruled the world at the time, a city that did not believe in God, and a nation that was at an enemy with Israel. If you go to such a place and cry out to God, will your life be safe? Wouldn't it at least be in jail? I have a fear of
2) Unbelief.
Is it really possible to do this? Could it be reckless? I have doubts.
Jonah may have the same doubts. Nineveh is as big a city as Seoul today. It is a castle so large that it takes three days to walk through it. And it is a city that worships idols who do not believe in God.
But go to such a city and say, “Repent. If I don't repent, will people listen to me when I shout, 'God will destroy this city in 40 days'? What is the meaning of my actions? Doubts may arise.
Obedience has barriers. But nevertheless, it is obedience to put it into action. It doesn't make any sense for me to do something that everyone can do. It is obedience when we decide with faith what we cannot do.
What are the obstacles to obedience in you? Although God's word is given over and over again, what is the part where we are not being obedient? In Philippians 2:13 the Lord says:
“The God who works in you, to will and to do for his good pleasure.”
He says that God is still at work in us. And it says that God gives us a wish in us for the evidence that He is working within us. That is the area I have to obey. It is the voice of God speaking to me. So, what is stopping you from obeying? Are you making us reject God's wishes? I hope you obey by faith.
3. Consequences of Obedience
It takes my decision to be obedient, but the next thing is up to God. If you obey by faith, God will start working from that point on. Jonah obeyed by faith in a difficult situation. So I went to Nineveh. And he went through the great city of Nineveh for one day, preaching the word. Verse 4.
No matter what people say, they said it. It was proclaimed regardless of whether they were arrested for preaching the word. However, unexpected results were obtained. Jonah was merely obedient, and the fruit was enormous. The people of Nineveh began to respond to Jonah's message. I started to listen.
1) They believed Jonah's message (5).
I did not receive Jonah's message as mad or in vain. received as the word of God. And he believed in the God that Jonah proclaimed. People who were unlikely to believe in God believed in God.
Something like that happens when you do evangelism. When we look at people's impressions, we think like this. This person probably doesn't believe in Jesus! You won't believe it, you won't even come close and you won't be able to talk! But for some reason, I see such a person accepting the gospel more purely in a miraculous way. It breaks our stereotypes. So did Nineveh. The city I thought I would believe in began to accept God.
2) Proclaimed fast.
When I heard that God was going to judge the city, I felt a serious sense of crisis. Hearing that, the rice did not pass. So I gave up on the most basic human need, the most powerful need, appetite. Giving up appetite is an expression of how earnestly you are before God. They decided to fast with a sense of crisis for the well-being of their souls, families, and people.
3) I prayed with earnest cry (8).
He told me to cry out to God. He ran to God to forgive him. It is as if a patient who was diagnosed with a deathly disease and was sentenced by a doctor to only live for 40 days prays to God to spare him one last time. They cried out to God and prayed.
4) I repented (8)
Not only did I pray, but I also turned from the wrong way. Verse 8 says that each one will turn from his evil ways and from the violence of his hands. It means that you have stopped doing what is wrong and are back on the right path. This is repentance. If you do not repent after fasting and prayer, and your behavior does not change, then that repentance is only formal repentance. Life must change.
At that time, God heard their sincere repentance (10). God changed his mind. He changed his mind that he had planned judgment. But what decisively moved God's heart? “When he saw that he had turned from his evil way and departed from iniquity.” Nothing moves the heart of God more than sincere repentance.
< Conclusion >
How are you? One day we will all stand before God. You will stand before the judgment seat. What will happen to us then? It is too late to repent at that time. You must repent now.
Maybe we have a limited life like the people of Nineveh. You never know when you will die. You never know when God will call. If so, how earnestly you are working for your soul?
The people of Nineveh repented for their lives, believing, fasting, crying out and praying and turning from their evil ways. How much are you working for your soul? How earnestly we pray and how thoroughly do we forsake our sins?
Like the people of Nineveh today, I hope you will restore your faith to believe in God, fast, cry out, pray, and repent.