RUSSELL SANDERS
9-6-2020
JONAH PART 28 OF 28
SUMMARY
As we wrap up the study of this book of Jonah, two things to remember about him are
1. He was a true prophet, well known in Israel
2. His experience was a foreshadow of Jesus
He was sent to the Assyrian capitol of Nineveh to preach judgement for their evil ways. God said in Jonah 4:11, that the people there “…cannot discern between their right hand and their left hand…” which meant their values were so messed up they could not distinguish between right and wrong.
God gave them stay of His order due to their repentance, but that stay would only be short term because it was not long before they returned to their wicked ways.
Assyria would be useful to God in bringing judgement upon His own rebellious people. Israel had gone deep into idolatry and never had a godly king from the time Jeroboam succeeded his father Solomon to the throne.
Within one hundred years after Jonah, Assyria was making raids into Israel. By 721-722 B.C. they had entirely conquered Israel and took most of the Jews out of their land and resettled them into foreign countries. They took pagans from other conquered foreign countries and resettled them into Israel, thus corrupting the genetic mix of a land that should have been all Jewish. The area was known as Samaria, and the Jewish population of Judah hated the “mixed breed” of people that became the new population of the northern kingdom.
God had a plan. Assyria was used to destroy the northern kingdom, Israel. Yet, because of their wicked ways, and the fact that they did destroy Israel, Assyria was judged and destroyed a little more than one hundred years later in 612 B.C (or 605 B.C.) as the new Babylonian empire rose up and swallowed Assyria. This was a little over 200 years after Jonah had been there.
Ultimately, Jonah’s prophecy that Nineveh would be overthrown did come to pass. It was just delayed a couple hundred years.
Jesus also prophesied that the kingdoms of this world would be overthrown, and He would rule the world from the New Jerusalem. Just as Assyria’s overthrow was delayed before it came to pass, so is the overthrow of the kingdoms (nations) of today’s world being delayed until the “fullness of time” in God’s plan, but that also will surely come to pass. Jesus will reign as the King of Kings on earth as He does even now in heaven.
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