The Prophet Jonah: Judged

II Kings 14:23-27

It is so easy for us to let a single incident define someone’s life. All the good they may have done can be erased by a single indiscretion. This is especially true in our social media generation. Gossip can spread faster than our parents’ generations ever dreamed. News spreads around the world just as quickly as we can press “share”. Then we also have the bravery of hiding behind our computer screens and saying things we normally would not say to someone’s face. Can you imagine the smear campaign Noah would have had to endure for being crazy enough to build an ark. I’m sure Ken Ham and Answers in Genesis probably have some idea.

In the fifteenth year of Amaziah the son of Joash, king of Judah, Jeroboam the son of Joash, king of Israel, became king in Samaria, and reigned forty-one years. 24 And he did evil in the sight of the Lord; he did not depart from all the sins of Jeroboam the son of Nebat, who had made Israel sin. 25 He restored the territory of Israel from the entrance of Hamath to the Sea of the Arabah, according to the word of the Lord God of Israel, which He had spoken through His servant Jonah the son of Amittai, the prophet who was from Gath Hepher. 26 For the Lord saw that the affliction of Israel was very bitter; and whether bond or free, there was no helper for Israel. 27 And the Lord did not say that He would blot out the name of Israel from under heaven; but He saved them by the hand of Jeroboam the son of Joash.

II Kings 14:23-27

If I asked you to give me your impression of Jonah, you would probably tell me about him being hateful, disobedient, whiney, or something else of that nature. While it is an important story, we need to also understand that there was much more to Jonah’s story than just the fish incident. The problem is, we don’t know all of his story. What we do know is wrapped up in the passage above.

God used Jonah to share a very important message with Israel (the Northern Kingdom). Jonah told the people that God was going to restore the land to them from their enemies, and it happened. The passage above is a historical “told you so”. God told the people, through Jonah, that He was going to be merciful to them and give the land back. II Kings is a recording of that promise being kept. God allowed Jonah to be the instrument and Jonah was faithful in carrying this message to the people. Truth be told, we do not know how old Jonah was. Nor do we know how many years he had been serving God as a prophet. God judged him faithful enough to share this message at a dangerous time and to rebellious people. There could have been more messages that he shared from God. Perhaps there were not. Maybe the two messages we have recorded are all that God used him to speak. What we do know is that he had an entire life before the book of Jonah was written.

Why am I bringing this up? Am I trying to redeem the name of Jonah? Not exactly. What I want us to think about, myself included, is that people mess up. Sometimes they mess up big. That one mess up, even if it is a season of their life, does not define the totality of who they are. God is a God who redeems. He doesn’t just redeem souls from sin, but He also redeems situations. God used Jonah being in the fish’s belly as punishment for Jonah, but also as a prophecy in itself for Jesus’s death, burial, and resurrection. We need to let God redeem other people’s mistakes as well.

Put yourself in Jonah’s shoes for just a moment. What if all anyone ever remembered about you was your one BIG mistake? Not only did your peers remember you for this, but generations upon generations of people after you died knew about your BIG mistake. It could seem like you were a total failure. You would probably rather they just forgot you. We should remember that when we are tempted to hold someone’s past against them. God can redeem their situation too. That should be our prayer.

Father, thank you for being a God who redeems. There is so much about us that needs redeeming. We are good at making a mess. We ask you to take our evil, and use it for good. Work it for good and for Your glory and help us to grow so that we give you less and less to have to redeem.