Jonah Protests unrighteousness
Jonah is a Bible story that every kid thinks they know, but no one tells them the real story. I believe people should know the whole story, warts and all, so I’ll tell you the story but you won’t believe me, you’ll think I’m making the whole thing up (I wish I had that good an imagination). So this prophet is not like all the other prophets. If you read Jeremiah he also walks around telling them God is going to judge them, but his message is to repent. Jeremiah 18:8 and if that nation I warned repents of its evil, then I will relent and not inflict on it the disaster I had planned. But Jonah, he knows that God will relent and not inflict evil if the nation he warns repents, so he doesn’t want to warn them. He hates Nineveh, this really evil city, and he hates the really evil king. All he wants is for God to inflict the disaster he is planning, so when God tells him to go to Nineveh he runs in the opposite direction. But the story gets weirder, he is on a boat running away. The boat is about to sink when the sailors learn that it is because he is running from God and they ask him what they should do to please God. Jonah tells them they need to throw him overboard? This is how much Jonah hated Nineveh, he would rather die than see them repent. So these sailors all beg God forgiveness that he doesn’t hold this against them, they do what Jonah said, and then they worship God. But then a fish swallows him and takes him to Nineveh (this is the part we tell kids). So the fish vomited Jonah up on the beach near Nineveh and he goes to this great city. It says it will take him four days to walk through the city but after the first day they all repent. From the evil king all the way down to their cows. What does Jonah preach? All he says is that in forty days you will be overthrown (doesn’t ask them to repent, doesn’t tell them God will forgive if they repent, nope, just you all are doomed). But that is not the end, because if it was you might not really understand. Jonah then goes away from the city in the hills to watch. He is hoping that they will repent of repenting and that then they will be judged, maybe fire falling from the sky like Sodom and Gomorrah. He is angry and he tells God this is why he didn’t want to come because he knew God would forgive and have compassion on them! Can you believe this guy is a “prophet of God”. To really bring home the point of how much he hates them, a tree that was shading him dies. Jonah blames God for that as well. He is now angry for two things, he is angry because God didn’t wipe out 120,000 people in the city and he is angry that God did wipe out the tree that was giving him shade! So look, I get it, people back then don’t make any sense at all. So instead let’s consider the Black Lives Movement and say that their leaders are prophets of God, like Jonah. The “great city Nineveh” that Jonah hates so much will be the United States, a country of people who “don’t know their right from their left” according to God. The sailors that threw these protestors into the ocean to die will be the cops. The fish that brought them across the ocean to Nineveh and vomited them onto the land, that will be the slave trade. If we do that then the story goes like this. God spoke to the leaders of the Black Lives Matter movement to go tell the evil king of the United States (Donald Trump) to repent or else they will be judged. These guys knew that God would forgive them and that was the last thing they wanted, so they ran the other way. Meanwhile this great storm has arisen, we have a pandemic raging throughout the entire world, we have climate change causing “biblical fires” in the arctic, in Siberia, in California and in Australia. It is also causing record breaking hurricanes, drought and floods. In the midst of this the cops go down into the ship, find these prophets of BLM, and wake them up. These prophets tell them that the “chickens have come home to roost” for all their sins. They want to know what they need to do? These prophets want the police to throw them into the sea, get the whole thing on video, and post a video that will go viral for all to see. They know they can’t fake it like Jussie Smollett, no, the cops need to do it. So they do that, but the cops beg God not to hold this sin to their account. And they worship God by sacrificing everyone who says or does anything that could be construed as an insult to God and to Black Lives Matter movement. Meanwhile the BLM prophets tell us how horrible slavery was. They were “deep in the realm of the dead”, God “hurled them into the depths, into the very heart of the sea”, “I said I have been banished”, “seaweed wrapped around my head, to the roots of the mountain I sank down”, “But you, Lord my God, brought my life up from the pit”, “What I have vowed I will make good. I will say, ‘salvation comes from the Lord’”. So they go to the great cities in the US and their message is “No justice, no peace”. But the people repent! According to the Bible it will take Jonah four days to walk through the city (similar to the protests by the BLM), but they repent after 1 day! They even write “Black Lives Matter” in big giant letters in front of the Whitehouse where the Evil king Trump lives, and also in front of his house in NYC. They do this so that God in heaven can see. Everyone in the entire country repents, managers of restaurants are fired, politicians are fired, any person found to say one thing against them is fired. Are they happy? Well, one prophet said “If this country doesn’t give us what we want we will burn down the system” (Hawk Newsome) and another said the fourth of July was “a celebration of white supremacy” (Colin Kaepernick). But it isn't just about slavery, the protests are also about the trees dying due to the blasting heat (climate change) and that is why even the cows have to repent (their farts are a big part of the climate change).
Now Jesus says that just like Jonah was in the belly of the fish He will be buried for three days and three nights. So in some ways Jesus is very similar to Jonah, only without sin. He was sent from heaven to preach salvation to us, He walked in love, whereas Jonah was full of hate. Like Jonah He was treated unrighteously with a monkey trial, all kinds of corruption and Roman privilege. The Bible says He was “in all things like us, only without sin”. So, if you don’t believe me, I have included the entire story right here, check it out yourself and tell me there aren’t some really weird stories in the Bible.