THE HIGHER PATRIOTISM
LESSON FOR THE JUNIOR CLASSES
STUDY SCRIPTURE:
JONAH 1: 1-3 JONAH 3 1-5 JONAH 4 6_11
Key Verse
“Then the Lord said, You had compassion on the plant, for which you did not work and which you did not cause to grow, which came up overnight and perished overnight. Should I not also have compassion on Nineveh”.
Jonah 4 :10-11
INTRODUCTION
Each one of us reading this Study Lesson knows that they are a citizen of the country in which they live. If they are not yet recognized as a citizen they know that they are a citizen of the country from which they came and now are likely on the road to having the right to live in the country in which they are. However, even if you belong to a country in which you were born or now applying for citizenship in another country.
The Bible says that you are a citizen of heaven once you have become a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ and have been taken by Him into His family.
The most important thing in your life therefore is to be a citizen of heaven. You have been instructed that until the time when Jesus returns to this earth you have to obey the laws of the country of which you are a citizen or the laws of the country in which you live. Thus you have to follow certain laws in the way you live. God wants all of his children to follow His laws and commandments and to use as your model of life the way that the Lord Jesus Christ lived.
Being a citizen of heaven means that you reject the lifestyle of evil doers and you do not live committing all kinds of sins which God has said you should not do.
That raises a problem for you because sometimes God asks you to do some things people in your nation do not like, or He might ask you to go and talk to people who are not in the kingdom of God and show them the way to become citizens of Heaven. When you follow the direction of God you run the risk of not being liked by those you live among.
The person that we are studying about today is the prophet Jonah. He lived in the Kingdom of Israel which consisted of 10 of the tribes of the original nation. But the leaders of that 10 tribe nation always did evil in the sight of God and several prophets, including Micah and Hosea warned them that they should change their way of actions and obey the laws of God. But they did not follow these prophets. The prophet Jonah however had been instructed by God to tell the leaders of his nation that they should behave but God promised to be merciful to them and would allow them to regain by military action a part of the land and territory that had been taken away from them by their enemies. The king of Israel loved that kind of message of mercy and so Jonah became a very popular person among them.
The problem for Jonah therefore is that he was very patriotic. He loved his nation even though he knew they were doing evil in the sight of God. Jonah knew that if his nation did not change their ways God would eventually send an enemy to destroy them, and that enemy was named as the Assyrians. He was aware of this powerful up and coming country and he knew they were terrible people who believed in torture and killing people in terror ways. So Jonah did not like the Assyrians at. He hated them with a strong and powerful passion for he knew that God had warned his nation that the Assyrians would destroy the nation of a Israel in the future.
God told Jonah to go to the Assyrian nation with its capital of Nineveh and tell them that they had 40 days to change or they would be overthrown. Jonah did not like to deliver that message demanding that the Assyrians repent and stop their evil ways of life. He knew that even though the Assyrians were terrible they might just listen to the message of God and repent and change.
Jonah did not tell God to His face that he would not obey Him and go to Assyria to bring the message of repentance. But he booked a passage on a ship to go in the opposite direction so he could get as far away from Nineveh as possible. He wanted to go to Tarshish on route to Spain or Japan. God dealt with Jonah’s bad action of disobedience by sending a terrible storm which was so awful the ship was breaking up. The sailors found out what Jonah had done and threw him overboard. Then the storm stopped right away. God had prepared a giant sea creature and it swallowed Jonah He was stuck in the belly of the fish for 3 days and 3 nights and he prayed to God to deliver him.
Jonah’s prayer was answered and the fish would spit him out on the shores near to Nineveh .Jonah now brought the message to the people to stop their evil way and surprisingly the people of Nineveh repented.
Jonah was shocked for he wanted the people to refuse to heed God’s warning. He went outside the city and sat down to watch if the people of Nineveh repented. God had to rebuke him for his bad behaviour and reminded Jonah He was a merciful and compassionate God who wanted to save people and not destroy them. We know it is most important to obey God’s orders. God wants people to repent of their sinning and our task is to talk to them and encourage them to repent and change their ways.