4 The Mighty Tempest Series

# 4 - The Mighty Tempest

Jonah 1:4 - “But the Lord sent out a great wind on the sea, and there was a mighty tempest on the sea, so that the ship was about to be broken up.”

But the Lord sent out a Great Wind on the Sea

Jonah had just boarded a ship to Tarshish and was doing a good job of blending with the other travelers, as if nothing was amiss in his life – after all, who knows our thoughts and intentions but God, and we ourselves. And if God doesn’t reveal them to other people, we’re safe isn't it? He had found himself a comfortable place on the ship – at the bottom of it, and settled in for the journey.

Just when Jonah perhaps thought all was well, and taken care of, did the Lord enter the scene again. Verse 4 says, “But the Lord sent out a great wind on the sea..” Jonah didn’t seem to take into account a couple of important things; one was that He couldn’t out run God, who was omnipresent, and the other was that, when God wanted to do something, no one, and nothing could stop Him.

The Lord did something that neither Jonah, nor the ship crew had foreseen. He sent out a great wind on the sea. Jonah didn’t realise that he was up against the God of the universe, and that there was no way he could ever win against Him. This was no regular tempest that came upon the Mediterranean Sea at that time of the year – it was sent by God Himself. Jonah didn’t realise that the Lord who had created the winds and the waves could do anything He wanted, whenever He wanted, for whatever reason He wanted, and for as long as He wanted.

As The Church of today, have some of us forgotten our life’s calling, and are we sailing along with the rest of the world? Have we forgotten that we are supposed to be about God’s work on the earth? Have we forgotten that the Great Commission was given not only to the disciples, but to every believer who is also a disciple (follower) of the Lord Jesus? Have some of us become rather comfortable running away from the Lord’s call on our lives? The Lord is able to send a ‘great wind’ to rock our life’s 'ship.'

We’ve heard the words of Paul in Romans 8:31, which says, “If God is for us, who can be against us?” But let’s also remember that if the Lord is against us, it doesn’t matter who is for us or with us - it won't make a difference - we'll be fighting a losing battle. In this case, it seemed like the Lord was against Jonah - not to harm him, but to bring him back to God's call on his life's purpose.

That’s the same way the Lord works in our individual lives, as well as in the life of The Church at large. He will do all it takes to enable us His Body to get in sync with the Head – Jesus. He will do all He can to bring us onto the journey of fulfilling the reason why He saved us from the clutches of sin and death - to help get others saved.

And there was a Great Tempest on the Sea

The ‘great wind’ that God sent, caused a ‘mighty tempest’ on the sea. When God struck, He struck the sea - the thing that the ship depended on to make it's journey. Suddenly, the ship's stability was literally thrown to the winds, and the ship was in danger of being broken up. It’s hard for a large ship to move through a tempestuous sea in our present day. One can imagine how a ship back in the day would have been affected by the ‘great tempest’ caused by the ‘great wind,’ sent by God Himself.

The world is going through a 'great tempest’ called COVID-19. We can actually coin a new word for it - tempest-illence because it’s a Tempestuous Pestilence that’s wreaking havoc across the globe, including in The Church. To a large extent, it’s hindering us form accomplishing what we’re supposed to be about - making disciple of all nations. I see this tempest-illence as a way of the Lord directing the attention of us The Church back to Him, His will and His plan in and through us across the globe.

The Ship was about to be Broken up

Suddenly the mode of transportation that Jonah had chosen (and also paid for), was in danger of being destroyed. Ships are not built to be destroyed by tempests, but such must have been the fury of this tempest, that the ship was in danger of being destroyed by it. The means he had chosen to run away from God was no longer a safe haven for him. He seemed to have paid for his ticket to death.