Today we’re continuing our series in Jonah.
My first talk was titled ‘God of compassion’. Nineveh, the capital of Assyria, was wicked. God described it as wicked and historians tell us that Assyria was wicked. It wasn’t just a little bit wicked. One historian of the Middle East wrote that ‘Assyrian national history … is as gory and bloodcurdling a history as we know.’ God was aware of Nineveh’s wickedness. He would not allow it to continue. But God wished to give Nineveh a chance. It certainly didn’t deserve a chance. The fact that God was willing to offer Nineveh a chance – in spite of how wicked it was – shows us how compassionate God is.
My second talk was titled ‘God of mission.’ God wanted to show compassion to Nineveh but there had to be a basis for it. The people of Nineveh had to repent, genuinely and sincerely. God sent Jonah there. But that was just a part of God’s strategy to communicate to the Ninevites. Jesus said that Jonah was a sign to the Ninevites. The sign was the fact that Jonah was swallowed by a great fish and survived. God took the initiative and he had the strategy to convince the Ninevites.
So, we’ve seen that God is a god of compassion and God is a god of mission.
My talk today is titled ‘God of salvation.’ Who does God save? God wants to save the people of Nineveh. They’re in danger of God’s judgement. But before the people of Nineveh can be saved, Jonah himself needs to be saved! This week we’re going to focus on how God saves Jonah. Next week we’ll go on to how God saves Nineveh.
You no doubt remember what happened. God told Jonah to go to Nineveh. Jonah didn’t want to go. He boarded a ship going in the opposite direction. A storm came along, the sailors threw Jonah into the sea and a great fish swallowed Jonah.
Chapter 2 verse 1 says ‘From inside the fish Jonah prayed to the Lord his God.’ The next nine verses are Jonah’s prayer. Finally, verse 10, the last verse in the chapter tells us, ‘And the Lord commanded the fish, and it vomited Jonah onto dry land.’ Jonah was saved!
What does this show us about how God saves?
I’d like to make four points.
First, God has awesome power to save!
Second, God saved Jonah from his immediate problem. Salvation doesn’t only mean eternal salvation.
Third, Jonah’s crisis caused him to sort out his relationship with God.
Fourth, God deliberately created the crisis!
So let’s get started!
First point: God has awesome power to save! Jonah is as doomed as it’s possible to be. The Mission Impossible team would shake their heads and say ‘this is beyond us.’ But God issues a command and the next moment, Jonah is on dry land! There’s no drama, no fuss. Problem solved. God has awesome power to save. There’s a practical application. Sometimes we think to ourselves: ‘This problem that I’m facing is way beyond me.’ Congratulations! That’s a great first step! Now take the next step and remember that it isn’t beyond God.
Second point: God saves Jonah from his immediate problem. In church settings today, when people talk about salvation they’re almost always thinking of our eternal salvation. But God saved Jonah from a great fish! This wasn’t about eternal life! Jonah wanted to survive the next 24 hours! God rescued Jonah from his immediate problem. God does that all through scripture and he does that today.
We can easily think of examples of God in the Bible of God saving people from their immediate problems. What comes to mind? How about God saving Joseph when his brothers threw him into a pit. (And as a result, saving his family from famine?) Or rescuing his people from slavery in Egypt? Or delivering David from King Saul when Saul was trying to kill him? There are plenty more examples! Over and over again we see that God delivers his people from problems they’re in. Often, they got into the problems themselves.
Common sense tells us that God does this. Jesus taught his disciples to pray to God as father. What is a good father like? A good father constantly helps his children. “I can’t find my pen.” “Can you help me with my homework?” “I’m hungry!” A good father helps his children even when they’ve got into trouble themselves. God is a very good father. He does the same. He’s willing to help and he’s able to help – much more so than any human mum or dad in fact. I can certainly say that’s been true in my life.
Scripture tells us that God is the person to turn to when we need help. ‘God is our refuge and strength, an ever-present help in trouble.’ ‘The name of the Lord is a strong tower; the righteous run into it and are safe.’ ‘The Lord is a refuge for the oppressed, a stronghold in times of trouble.’ Those are all from Psalms.
So the story of Jonah reminds us that God rescues his people from immediate problems.
The practical application is obvious. When we’re facing problems, we need to turn to God. Don’t imagine that God is only in the business of eternal salvation. He’s the expert in all kinds of salvation. Of course, we mustn’t forget that Jonah prayed – and then God helped him. If we’re in trouble we need to ask! James wrote, ‘You do not have, because you do not ask.’ We need to ask God to help us!
My third point is that Jonah’s crisis caused him to sort out his relationship with God.
A while back I took out a subscription to a magazine called Christianity Today. In most issues there’s a testimony. Someone describes how he or she came to faith in Jesus. It’s remarkable how often the person came to faith as result of problems. They’re often really serious problems. I’d like to tell you part of one person’s testimony. Allen Langham started his testimony as follows:
‘As a child, there was violence everywhere I turned. My mother had been widowed by her first husband, abused for 20 years by her second, and deserted by my father (whom she never married) when I was eight months old … One morning, alerted by the shrieks of my eldest sister, I came downstairs to find my mother dead on the sofa, the victim of a cerebral haemorrhage. Something snapped in me that day—I was only 14—that put me on the road to destruction for the next 20 years.
I went to three schools, getting expelled from the first two for unmanageable behaviour. By the time I left home at 16, I was a ticking time bomb—angry, bitter, and lost. My sister ran pubs, and I started down the path of drinking, gambling, and fighting, emulating the “gangster” lifestyle. This was my idea of what it meant to be a man.’
Langham went to prison and while he was there developed a heroin addiction. He came out of prison and went back to crime. He then wrote:
‘While awaiting trial in a kidnapping and hostage-taking case, I finally hit rock bottom and decided to commit suicide. With tears streaming down my face, I dropped to my knees and made one final plea to God…’
Langham hit rock bottom. At that point, he turned to God. From then on, his life took a much better direction. Langham’s situation mirrors Jonah’s. Jonah had literally sunk to the depths.
We wouldn’t wish a situation like Langham’s or Jonah’s on anyone. But suppose one day you find yourself in such a situation. You’re in a bad place and you got there all by yourself. If a football club comes bottom of the league the owners will look for a new manager. What if YOU come bottom of the league? What if YOU hit rock bottom? Will you decide that it’s time for a new manager? Will you surrender to God’s management?
Note that Langham’s situation got extremely bad before he reached out to God. He’d decided to commit suicide. Jonah was in a similarly dire situation. Jesus’ parable of the prodigal son is much the same. The prodigal son reached rock bottom before he decided to return to his father.
Jonah is inside a great fish, down in the sea. That was a serious-enough problem. But down in the fish, Jonah recognizes that his situation is even more serious.
Look at 2:4. Jonah says, ‘I have been banished from your sight.’
When Jonah uses the word ‘banished’ he uses the same word as Genesis uses when it says that God drove Adam out of the Garden of Eden. [N.B., it’s the word translated ‘drove out’ in Genesis 3:24, rather than the word translated ‘banished’ in 3:23]. Adam and Eve knowingly and deliberately disobeyed God and God drove them out. Jonah knowingly and deliberately disobeyed God and God banished him. Our relationship with God doesn’t survive deliberate disobedience.
When Jonah was in the storm he didn’t pray. When he was thrown into the sea he didn’t pray. At least, there’s no sign that he did in either case. But down in the fish, Jonah comes to his senses. Finally, he prays.
And now, Jonah experiences salvation at two levels. God saves him from his immediate problem. The great fish vomits Jonah up and Jonah is back on dry land. But at a deeper level, Jonah’s relationship with God is restored. In Jonah 1 Jonah disobeyed God. In Jonah 3 Jonah obeyed him. In Jonah 1, Jonah runs from God. In Jonah 4 we find Jonah and God having a long conversation.
I’d like to emphasise one thing. The fact that we’re having problems doesn’t mean that we’ve strayed from God. Everyone experiences the rain, the streams and the winds of life. Everyone’s house is tested. But if the house collapses, then it shows that there’s a problem with the foundation. If our house collapses, we need to look at our relationship with God. That was what Langham, Jonah and the prodigal son did. When we turn back to God, we find that he’s ready to welcome us.
My fourth and final point is that God may deliberately bring problems our way.
Inside the great fish Jonah tells God, ‘YOU hurled me into the depths, into the very heart of the seas…’ (Jonah 2:3). This may seem strange! Jonah got onto a boat. But God hadn’t told him to go anywhere by boat. Jonah told the sailors on the ship to throw him into the sea. God didn’t hurl him into the sea! So how can Jonah think that GOD hurled him into the sea? Surely, he’d got there all by himself?
I’m not going to try to unravel this. Let’s just accept that in some way it’s true that God hurled Jonah into the sea. What does that show us? I’m sure you know the expression, to throw someone in the deep end. According to Jonah, that’s what God did to him! God is really rough with Jonah! Why would God do that?
Jonah had already gone away from God. God needed to bring him back. You may shake your heads at this. You may find it hard to believe that God would deliberately bring a person into danger. It’s the opposite of safeguarding! But Jonah tells God: ‘You hurled me into the depths.’ It tells us something about God. He isn’t as gentle as we might imagine. He doesn’t want to lose Jonah and he goes to great lengths to wake him up. If God acted this way in Jonah’s day, he acts that way today. God doesn’t change.
Let me summarise.
First, we saw that God has awesome power to save! If you think your situation is impossible – remember Jonah’s situation!
Second, we saw that God saved Jonah from his immediate problem. Don’t imagine that salvation only means eternal salvation. God can help in every situation. He’s our father! He wants to help!
Third, Jonah’s crisis caused him to sort out his relationship with God. A crisis doesn’t mean that we’ve gone away from God. But sometimes a crisis wakes us up to the fact that we have. That was true for Jonah. If we find ourselves in a crisis, let’s check where we stand in relationship to God. If we’ve let things slip then we need to humble ourselves and turn back to God.
Fourth, God deliberately created the crisis! Jonah said that God hurled him into the sea! God caused Jonah distress, fear and discomfort. I don’t suppose God wanted to do that, but what God emphatically did not want was to lose Jonah. If we find God is being – shall we say, a little rough with us – let’s recognize that God only ever does so for our good.
Talk given at Rosebery Park Baptist Church, Boscombe, Bournemouth, UK, 11 July 2021
