# 17 – The Prayer for Mercy
Jonah 1:14 – “Therefore they cried out to the LORD and said, “We pray, O LORD, please do not let us perish for this man’s life, and do not charge us with innocent blood; for You, O LORD, have done as it pleased You.”
“Therefore they cried out to the LORD…”
In our last devotion we saw how despite Jonah suggesting to the sailors that they throw him into the sea so that the sea would become calm for them, they struggled to row to shore and were unable to, as the sea became more tempestuous. We must admire their concern for Jonah in wanting to save his life and continuing to risk all their lives in the process.
Now it seems like they have no other option but to take Jonah’s advice to throw him into the sea. But before they do that they do something that seems quite strange to us who read the story, and must have been to Jonah as well. They decided to pray to the God of Jonah. We must remember that these men were not Jews and so did not worship the God of the Jews, they had their own so-called gods that they worshipped. But here they are clearly praying to the Lord, which is the God of the Jews.
When we ponder this fact of them praying to the Lord, it’s evident that they had come to believe in the Lord and there are two obvious reasons for this happening. The first being that that they seemed to know that the tempest was caused by God and was no ordinary tempest. The second factor that pointed them to the Lord was when they discovered that Jonah was fleeing from the Lord and so the Lord had sent the tempest on the sea. This must have been a terrifying revelation to them about who God is. If God could do something so terrible to get at one man, He must be an awesome and yet personal God.
Unconsciously, Jonah had been instrumental in leading a few men to the knowledge of God, and that without doing any preaching. Strangely, he was supposed to be fleeing from exactly this – preaching and here, without preaching, he is seeing people come to know the Lord. Is that not amazing to see how the Lord can reveal Himself to people, if He chooses to?
When we look at the ways the Lord is working in the world today, it’s amazing to see how many people from non-Christian backgrounds are testifying to how the Lord is revealing Himself to them in visions and dreams, without anyone ever talking to them about Jesus. It’s clear that if we The Church fail to do what we were called and chosen to do – to make disciples of all nations, the Lord can do it on His own, but the sobering reality is that we will be held accountable for not fulfilling our purpose for living.
“…and said, “We pray, O LORD, please do not let us perish for this man’s life…”
When they prayed, they asked two things of the Lord - let’s look at the first thing they asked of the Lord. They asked the Lord to not let them perish on account of Jonah’s life. They thought (as would any of us have), that Jonah would die if he were thrown into the raging waters, because even the best of swimmers could never survive such raging waters. So they asked the Lord to not let them perish when they threw Jonah into the sea. Despite the fact that they believed what Jonah told them - that if they threw him into the sea, the sea would become calm for them, they were now gripped with another fear – would God avenge the life of Jonah by taking their lives? Suddenly their lives seem more important to them than Jonah’s life.
It seems obvious that they possess a strong sense of justice. They know that if they take a life, they would have to pay with life, and hence that prayer to the Lord for mercy. From their plea to God for mercy and spare their lives, it’s also evident that they seem to have an understanding that the Lord is merciful. How they arrived at that understanding of the Lord we do not know but that seems to be evident from their prayer.
The world hears us talk a lot about the love of God, but do they hear us talk about God’s justice and mercy? We need to be careful that we are giving the world the right understanding of God. And the best possible way we can communicate the attributes of God, is if we demonstrate them in our own lives. Do we demonstrate justice in our everyday lives? Do we have a strong sense of right and wrong or are we vague about demarcating between the two, so as to be accommodative? Do we demonstrate divine love in all of our relationships or is our love no different from that of the world – conditional, biased, with strings attached? Do we show mercy to those who wrong us or do we wait for the first possible chance to get back at them and take revenge? Many times, we are the greatest message we give the world about God.
“and do not charge us with innocent blood…”
The second thing they ask of the Lord is that He doesn’t charge them with killing an innocent man. They realise that there’s no reason why they should take Jonah’s life, except the reason that Jonah himself gave them – that the sea would become calm for them if they did this. As unreasonable and heartless as it sounds, they’ve decided to do just that and are pleading to God for mercy on them before going ahead with it.
Here again we see their strong sense of justice – a man should not die for no reason. They recognise Jonah as an innocent man. In fact in their eyes, there’s nothing that Jonah is guilty of. The only thing he seems to be guilty of is something that he himself confesses to them – fleeing from God. How one man’s disobedience to God can cause a storm on the sea is something that they would never have heard of in their lives before. But apart from this confession by Jonah, he was an innocent man and was certainly not deserving of death.
This reminds me of another person who was absolutely innocent and not deserving of death except that He claimed to be who He really was – the Son of God. Jesus was not guilty of any sin and Pilate and Herod knew that too; in fact that’s the reason Pilate washed his hands and said, “I am innocent of the blood of this just person.” (Matthew 27:24). Pilate recognised Jesus as a just person and not deserving of death but he could not prevail against the crowd and so washed his hands claiming that he was innocent of taking Jesus’ life.
“…for You, O LORD, have done as it pleased You.”
After making these two requests to the Lord, they then acknowledge the fact that God was behind what they were about to do. God’s messenger had given them this idea to thrown him into the sea, and they were merely carrying it out. Isn’t that an amazing interpretation of the situation? They realise that God is behind this whole situation they are in and they are merely instruments in the hands of God to accomplish what He intended for Jonah. As far as they are concerned they think that it would be the end of Jonah’s life for being rebellious against God.
As we ponder this portion of the story of Jonah and as we make comparisons with The Church-at-large, we need to ask ourselves a serious question. If God has sent this global pandemic on the world on account of us The Church, because we have failed to fulfil our purpose for existence as His messengers – to take the Gospel to the world and make disciples of all nations, is it possible that we will be plunged into great tribulation? Will God permit the world to persecute us, and will the Lord use this to get our attention and to get us back on track? If God could do that to Jonah, there’s no reason why He can’t do the same to us The Church as well. After all, there’s a whole world of people whose eternity is at stake, and we The Church to a large extent are taking it rather easy and are busy going about our own lives and businesses, and neglecting the purposes for which we were saved in the first place.
Jesus said in Matthew 24:9-10 - “Then they will deliver you up to tribulation and kill you, and you will be hated by all nations for My name’s sake. And then many will be offended, will betray one another, and will hate one another.” It’s clear from Jesus’s words that He’s referring to The Church going through a time of tribulation. Notice the word, ‘you,’ is used three times in those verses and the words, ‘one another,’ is used twice. Both ‘you’ and ‘one another’ refer to the believers. Jesus says that believers will be killed, will be hated by all nations for His name’s sake, many will be offended, many will be betrayed by fellow believers, many believers will be hated by other believers. Let’s do all we can while we can before the time comes when we can’t do as much as we’re doing now to make the Gospel known to the world around.
Let’s take stock of our lives, seek the Lord, repent and get back to God and get about being and doing all that we were called to, before it’s too late, because if we let these moments of God’s patience pass us by, chances are we will live to see the days Jesus talked about.
May God bless you. Have a good day or night.
