God’s Runaway
Jonah 1:1-17
Ever run away from home? I did more than once -- in my mind at least. I was maybe 5 or 6 at the time. And I played with the idea a lot. There was a problem, though -- when you live in Western Kansas like I did, you have a long way to go before you reach civilization, so when you decide to run away you have to sort of worry about surviving!
I read a story about a 5-year old who decided to run away. His neighbor lady saw him go, as she worked in her garden. There he trudged down the sidewalk, past her house, hauling a little suitcase in his red wagon. He disappeared around the block. A few minutes later, he reappeared and went past her again. Again, he circled the block. The third time, she finally asked: "Whatcha doing?" He answered, "I’m running away from home!" “So” she said -- “why do you keep circling the block?" He answered timidly, "cuz I’m not allowed to cross the street!!"
We’ll spend the next few weeks with the prodigal prophet -- God’s Runaway. Jonah writes in the third person; as he does, he puts his life under the microscope and dissects his experience so we can learn from him. What we’ll see is Jonah isn’t just a story of a rebel, or the fish who gulped him down and then spit him up 3 days later; it’s the account of the God who was resolved to get hold of Jonah’s heart and use the man -- therefore God pursued him.
Like the little boy, Jonah had had enough, and he fled. His running was a lot more serious than the little boy’s. Because he was God’s man, he was running from God. But, like the little boy, he had trouble getting very far. If we pay close attention to Jonah’s story, God’s will speak to more than one runaway.
Maybe even you. Would running from God describe your life right now?
You heard Marty read the first chapter. Let’s begin with what I call
Jonah’s fugitive response. What are the common components of running from God?
First, 1. He disregarded God’s word. (1:1, 2)
Our story opens with God commissioning His prophet. Verses 1 and 2 don’t describe how Jonah got the word God. What is clear is that God revealed His desire to him, it says: the word of the Lord came to Jonah, the son of Amittai. He announced what He wanted His man to do. Go to the great city of Nineveh annd preach against it, because its wickedness has come up before me, God says. When the God of Heaven spoke to His prophet, the prophet therefore had divine authority when he relayed God’s message.
Nineveh was East of the Tigris River, 550 miles northeast of Samaria. It’s in modern-day Iraq. It would have taken Jonah a month to get there. The city was second in size only to Babylon. It was built by Nimrod. After Jonah’s time, it became the capital of the Assyrian Empire under Sennacherib.
God calls Jonah to go to Nineveh to preach against it. When you see that phrase preach against in OT prophecy, it means to announce the doom of God’s coming judgment. God says the city’s wickedness has come up before Him -- that means the people were absolutely relentless persisting their sin. The king will later confess that his people’s ways were evil and violent. Another prophet, Zephaniah will record these people were carefree and thought they were invincible. Nahum prophesied against the same evils.
Nineveh was infamous in its time for brutal torture and atrocities against prisoners of war. I read things about their practices that would make some of you physically ill if I read them aloud. Besides their other evil, the city was also know for its idolatry. It had temples to Nabu, Asshur and Adad. The Ninevites also worshiped Ishtar, the goddess of love and war.
God’s call was for Jonah to announce judgment was soon to fall. The Holy God has had enough. The full measure of His anger toward their sin is about to be unleashed. That’s Jonah’s message. That’s God’s word to him.
God’s is at work in this large, distant, pagan, city. He wants Jonah to become His mouthpiece where He’s at work. The problem was, Jonah’s nationalistic pride got in the way; after all, these were hard-core pagans; they had nothing to do with his God or God’s chosen people; they were enemies; therefore He wanted nothing to do with them.
So Jonah chose to ignore what God said. When you and I run, we ignore God’s clear word in similar ways. We avoid exposure to Scripture. Avoid time with other believers who will challenge us scripturally. Or we practice selective reading or listening. Just read the encouraging parts and forget clear passages that would take our obedience to radical levels.
Jonah could not fathom why God would want him involved with those pagans of Nineveh. He wanted nothing to do with this assignment. He disregarded God’s clear word.
Therefore, 2. He fled God’s presence. (1:3, 10)
Jonah lets us know what He was thinking when he took off. Verses 3 and 10 say essentially the same thing. He says he was running away from the Lord. It wasn’t just that he had no inclination to obey God; in reality, he was setting his sights on getting out of God’s presence and influence in his life.
Verse 3 seems to indicate that almost as soon as the Lord’s word ceased, Jonah started running. Without a thought, he was out of there! His destination was Tarshish (or Spain). Ninevah was 550 miles toward the east, Tarshish was 2000 miles to the west. If God’s about to work over there, I’ll get as far away as I can. He seems to think that if God’s intent on getting His message to the Ninevites, God will just find Himself another prophet in Samaria or Judah. So, running to Spain, it seems he was running from God and getting far from God’s judgment at the same time.
Verse 3 opens and closes with the repeated phrase of Jonah fleeing from God. The rest of the verse is a list of actions he took to do just that. He traveled to Joppa, a sea port, he found a ship bound for Spain, he paid the fare, and he went aboard and sailed. One commentator says the term for paying the fare suggests Jonah didn’t just buy a ticket to Spain but rather had to pay the price for chartering the whole ship.
I can’t count the Christians I’ve known who thought a change of location meant they were further from God. They get away from Christian parents, some move to another city where nobody knows them, they join the military, they abandon their spouse or their family, they go hang out with unbelievers and avoid all their former Christian friends. And they think they’ve left God in the dust of their travels. An old song went, He was there all the time. I think back on the times I’ve run --- sometimes because of sin and guilt; there one time when a Christian leader grossly offended me and I was just plain angry; so I turned tail and left my God. Or other times, I was just tired of doing things God’s way. Then, at the end of the road, like the prodigal son, when I came to myself -- I turned around and guess who was right behind me. His nature makes it impossible for Him not to be present, wherever we go in His universe. We learned that in Psalm 139 last year. But we still presume to try.
The inconsistency in Jonah’s thinking, and in ours is the huge contrast between verse 3 and verse 10. Jonah ran away from the Lord. Verse 10. The Lord, the God of Heaven, who made the sea and the land.
He heard and ignored Him. Instead of heading east, he fled west trying to run away from the God of creation. Why? Because
3. He was offended at God’s grace. (4:2)
We have to jump to chapter 4, verse 2 to get into Jonah’s heart. After he relents, and goes and preaches in Nineveh, the people repent, and God doesn’t judge them. Out of anger and disgust the prophet rebukes his Lord in 4:2 That is why I was so quick to flee to Tarshish. I knew that you are a gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger and abounding in love, a God who relents from sending calamity.
Jonah knew God’s character: that He is full of grace and compassion, that it takes a long time for Him to finally deal with people out of anger instead of love. And the genuine possibility that God might be gracious and merciful toward the Ninevites offended him deeply. Because they didn’t deserve God’s mercy and grace!
A decade or two ago, after thousands of Californians fled urban sprawl and moved north to Oregon and Washington and found beautiful forests and quiet acreages, they put up signs along the northbound highways. The signs read, something like this: "Please come and visit, but don’t move here." In other words, we came here to benefits from all this beauty and quiet; don’t you dare come looking for the same good things.
That same spirit grabs us when we write certain people are just hopeless. That they will never change. That God could never do anything in them.
A similar spirit comes out of us when we critique others God is using. We look across town, or across the church, where God is working through someone and we criticize the people God is using. We need to understand God works in all kinds of places and He is intent on using all kinds of people. They don’t have to do it they way we would do it, or the way we did it when we were their age. God is at work; don’t ever be offended at what He does.
Let’s learn from Jonah’s fleeing. Look at
Jonah’s practical lessons
1. When God speaks, listen. (1:1, 2)
Hebrews says, God has spoken, clearly and definitively through His Son and His written word. God uses His word to open us, to reveal our thinking, motives, thoughts--our hearts. And God uses His word to reveal His heart to us. His desire is to align my heart with His. Like Jonah, we’ve got our prejudice and preconceived notions about how God should work, based on the past. But when God aligns my heart with His, that always means change. Transformation about how I think and feel and behave. James says, don’t turn away from the Word, being a forgetful, disinterested listener. Don’t listen and walk away. Don’t read God’s Word and jot a few notes in a Bible study book and turn away the same person. Let God’s word reveal God’s heart; then you will be available for Him use you wherever and with whomever God desires.
2. If you know God’s character, respond accordingly. (1:3, 9, 10)
I taught speech when I was in Grad School at K-State. One of my students was a fraternity guy who prided himself on being a hard-core pagan. As you can imagine coming from that evil institution! Marty came to me one day after class and said, "there’s this girl I know I’m gonna send to talk to you, cause she really needs God in her life." I said, "Marty, that’s totally inconsistent. She needs Christ, but you don’t?"
Jonah’s behavior is crammed with inconsistency and contradiction. As I said earlier, verses 3 and 10, describe a man who maintains that He runs from the designer of land and sea--the One he worships. In verse 9, he calls God the God over creation. He’s a man who claims to know God, and worship God in truth as the God of all, but his behavior says the opposite.
How do you run from a God Who’s present everywhere? How can you hide away from the God who made everything and sees everything.
How can you claim to worship the One you’re running from? If you’re tempted to laugh at Jonah, ask yourself when the last time was that you felt free to say something or do something when there weren’t any Christians around; something you’d never do or say if your family and friends had been with you. How deeply does the truth of God’s character impact your behavior?
The third lesson,
3. When God pursues you, stop running. (1:4-8)
Or as our modern version goes, "when you find yourself in a hole, stop digging!" Jonah spent a lot of effort and time and eventually discomfort in a desperate effort to get away from God. Imagine one of these sailors listening to his words in verse 9, I worship the Lord, the God of Heaven, who made the sea and the land. Say what? They were discerning enough to know that the storm came from the hand of God as He reached out to draw His man back to Himself.
Jonah’s first question in the middle of the storm should have been : “is God trying to get my attention?” Like we learned from John 15, when the pain of life comes our way, we need to get before our God and ask Him, is this because I’m avoiding you? ignoring your Word? on a disobedient course? God will answer honest prayer like that. Because obviously, if God loves you (and He does), if God has a plan for your life (and He does), then He will do as He promised. He will direct you. He will speak to you. He will guide you.
If you’re on the run today, let God take the lessons Jonah learned and turn you around. He’s been there all the time. He is determined to get your attention. And He is determined to use your life. Stop running. Turn around. Get back in His Word. Find out where He’s working, and join Him.
Steps I will take
Discussion Questions
1. What kinds of things do people do when they’re running from God?
2. What kinds of people or groups constitute our "Ninevites"? (People toward whom we assume God would never be gracious)
3. What would be an illustration of being "offended by God’s grace"?
4. Why do is our response to God’s Word and God’s voice so vital?
5. In what ways do we try to avoid God’s presence?
6. What other facets of God’s character do we often ignore in how we behave?
7. How do you need to apply Jonah 1?
