Stop Running
As I prayed this week asking the Lord to give me the message for today, He brought me to the book of Jonah. Many people find this particular piece of scripture hard to believe, but we should not, for we know that nothing is impossible for our God. Today we are going to examine what happened to Jonah and see if there is a lesson to be learned from it. We are going to see if his experience applies to us today. Let’s open up our bibles and let’s read what happened to Jonah.
Jonah 1:1-17 - Now the word of the LORD came unto Jonah the son of Amittai, saying, 2 Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and cry against it; for their wickedness is come up before me. 3 But Jonah rose up to flee unto Tarshish from the presence of the LORD, and went down to Joppa; and he found a ship going to Tarshish: so he paid the fare thereof, and went down into it, to go with them unto Tarshish from the presence of the LORD. 4 But the LORD sent out a great wind into the sea, and there was a mighty tempest in the sea, so that the ship was like to be broken. 5 Then the mariners were afraid, and cried every man unto his god, and cast forth the wares that were in the ship into the sea, to lighten it of them. But Jonah was gone down into the sides of the ship; and he lay, and was fast asleep. 6 So the shipmaster came to him, and said unto him, What meanest thou, O sleeper? arise, call upon thy God, if so be that God will think upon us, that we perish not. 7 And they said every one to his fellow, Come, and let us cast lots, that we may know for whose cause this evil is upon us. So they cast lots, and the lot fell upon Jonah. 8 Then said they unto him, Tell us, we pray thee, for whose cause this evil is upon us; What is thine occupation? and whence comest thou? what is thy country? and of what people art thou? 9 And he said unto them, I am an Hebrew; and I fear the LORD, the God of heaven, which hath made the sea and the dry land. 10 Then were the men exceedingly afraid, and said unto him. Why hast thou done this? For the men knew that he fled from the presence of the LORD, because he had told them. 11 Then said they unto him, What shall we do unto thee, that the sea may be calm unto us? for the sea wrought, and was tempestuous. 12 And he said unto them, Take me up, and cast me forth into the sea; so shall the sea be calm unto you: for I know that for my sake this great tempest is upon you. 13 Nevertheless the men rowed hard to bring it to the land; but they could not: for the sea wrought, and was tempestuous against them. 14 Wherefore they cried unto the LORD, and said, We beseech thee, O LORD, we beseech thee, let us not perish for this man's life, and lay not upon us innocent blood: for thou, O LORD, hast done as it pleased thee. 15 So they look up Jonah, and cast him forth into the sea: and the sea ceased from her raging. 16 Then the men feared the LORD exceedingly, and offered a sacrifice unto the LORD, and made vows. 17 Now the LORD had prepared a great fish to swallow up Jonah. And Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights.
Wow, is his something or what? This is why I said before that many people find this particular piece of scripture hard to believe. But, let’s examine what occurred here, because when we analyze this incident we will realize that what happened to Jonah in this instance is not to fat from what happens to us now a days. Before we go on, I want to take a couple of minutes to give you a little background on what is happening here.
As we can see, God called upon Jonah to go into Nineveh and preach His word. When we just read this quickly, we just see that God called him to preach in a city, but when we research it we se that is was much more than that. The city of Nineveh was the capital city of the Assyrian Empire. This empire was huge and perverse and was the most feared by the Jewish people for the atrocities they had committed. Therefore, from childhood Jonah had been taught to hate the Assyrians and their authority. He hated them so bad that he did not want them to receive God’s mercy. Keeping this in mind let’s go on and see what happened here and how it applies to our lives today.
After receiving the call from God, Jonah did something that some of us usually do, he ran. Not only did he run, but he ran in the opposite direction. You see Nineveh was to the east of where Jonah was and he traveled west to Joppa. He ran away because he could not find it in his heart to forgive these people for what they had done in the past. When we examine closely what occurred here, we realize that it is not too different from what is happening to us today. You see, we all have been called to preach and spread the gospel, but in many instances, our own fears, prejudice and hatred keeps us from doing God’s will. We have all been called to leave our city and enter into Nineveh to preach the Word of God. What am I talking about you ask? The answer is simple:
Matthew 28:18-20 - And Jesus came and spake unto them, saying, All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth. 19 Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost: 20 Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and, lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world. Amen.
But you see, what happens most often is that we attempt to ignore what God commands. Just like Jonah we attempt to run away and not do His will. The funny part is that we always think that we have a great excuse. But the truth of the matter is that we have no excuse, we just simply put God in last place of our lives. Often times we run because of fear or stubbornness, and we simply say that God is just too demanding of us, that God wants too much. But I ask you today, how much has God done for us?
John 3:16 - For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.
Is anyone here willing o give up a child to be whipped, tortured and crucified in order to save another person in this temple? I don’t think there is. But God did not hesitate, God gave his only begotten son to die for our sins. The perfect sacrifice that we may obtain redemption and salvation. Is God then asking too much of us? This is a question that I will let you answer to yourselves.
As we see here, Jonah began to run away from where God had called him, he ran west and God had sent him east. But no matter how far he could have gone, he could not hide from God. I guess he thought that God was the God of Israel only, that He would not be able to find him once he got far way, but he was very wrong. So, he arrived in Joppa and proceeded to book a passage on the next departing ship. Once in the ship he proceeded to make himself comfortable and we read that he fell asleep. I guess he must have been very comfortable because I do not believe that the boats from that era had all the commodities that we think of when we think of booking a passage on a boat. Is this beginning to sound familiar? You see, just like Jonah the people of God are constantly running from what He has commanded us to do.
We are comfortable in the knowing that we have been saved, we are comfortable in coming to church once a week, we just kick back, relax and simply fall to sleep when it comes to doing God’s work. Then just like in Jonah’s case, the storms form and begin to shake up our comfort zone. We begin to experience difficulties and problems, and whether we allow it or not, people around us are always affected. Then what happens is that just like the mariners in our passage, everyone begins asking that question that we have all heard so much, everyone begins to ask "why?" I am sure that at one point of our lives or another we have all heard the question "if God protects you so much, then why does he allow this to happen to you?" I know that I have heard it many times.
This is what was happening here to Jonah, everyone was asking "why?" Often times we get asked this question and although we know the answer, we manage to come up with at least a dozen excuses for our actions. We all know what we have been called to do, we all know that God is a just God, and almighty God, but yet we continue to ignore Him. But this was not the case here, Jonah did not attempt to make any more excuses. He recognized that he was the one responsible for what was happening to him and those that were around him. Sometimes we do the same, we recognize that we have been wrong in something, we recognize that we need help, then we ask those around us to help us. Just like the mariners in this passage, they help us as much as they can by attempting to bring in the boat to a safe harbor. However, if there is a lesson to be learned God will not allow us to have an easy out. Just like in Jonah’s case, they attempted to bring the ship back to shore, but God did not allow it. Do you know why? Because God was not done yet with Jonah’s lesson. He was about to teach Jonah a lesson that he would never forget. Jonah needed to learn the meaning of the word compassion. After all, the mariners demonstrated more compassion in this instance than Jonah did. Even after knowing that it was Jonah’s fault that they were in such a mess, they demonstrated their compassion by attempting to bring the boat back to shore. It is certainly more compassion than what Jonah demonstrated by refusing to go to the land of his enemies and call them to repentance.
But I want all of us here to notice something here that is very important. We have all seen that Jonah was wrong, that he made a huge mistake in thinking that he could hide from God. But the most important thing to note here is that God will even use our mistakes to allow His glory to shine through. Here we have a group of pagan men that were at first calling upon false gods to save them, but they ended up calling upon the name of the all mighty bowing down their hearts and recognizing that there are no other gods that could save them. As we continue we see something that perhaps we may find hard, and that is that they eventually threw Jonah over board. Why did this happen? Because it was the will of God. You see this happens to us even today. We may face problems or situations, we may face the storms in our lives, but we are safe and secure in our boat. We attempt to ride out the storm, but by not doing the will of God the storms just get worse. The people that are around us eventually get tired, and we wind up in the raging sea.
This is what happened to Jonah, he was cast into the middle of a raging storm. I don’t know how many here have ever been out at sea during a storm, but I can tell you from personal experience that it is very scary and intimidating. Now, it would have been very easy for God to have allowed Jonah to simply drown, but this was not the case. God did not allow him to drown, but rather He had a great fish ready to swallow him up, and he lived in it’s belly for three days and three nights. Many people say that this is impossible and find this part hard to believe, but nothing is impossible for our God.
Just in case anyone finds this hard to believe, I want to tell you that Jesus himself used the illustration of Jonah’s predicament to illustrate His resurrection (Matthew 12:39-40). You see Jonah just like all of us here had been called to call the people to repentance. Jonah needed to learn a valuable lesson as do we. We need to learn that God’s things are not to be ignored, that what he has called us to do is not a game. We have to realize that we have been called to spread the gospel to all the ends of the world. That we have been called to his service but not as slaves, but rather as His children. He has called us to serve Him and as loving children we must do it without hesitation. It’s time that we stop running, because we can run, but there is no place to hide. But if we run, then we must be ready to pay the consequences, because we may very well be caught in the middle of a raging storm.
To conclude, Jonah realized that he was wrong to attempt to hide from God. He repented, and prayed and God delivered him from the belly of the great fish. He then did as God instructed him to do, he brought the message of the Lord to Nineveh. What happened next is a miracle, for the people of Nineveh repented and turned from their evil ways. You see we may not know the reason why God has called us, we may not know the reason why God has instructed us to do something, but He sure does not. As Christians it’s time that we learn that no matter how far we may run, God will always be there. That as Christians we have to obey the will of God at all times, there is no excuse for not doing so. There is no reason for putting the things of God in last place of our lives. As Jonah learned in this instance about compassion, so must we. Brethren when people of the world show more compassion towards situations than Christians, then what does that say about our God? It’s time that we unite as the body of Christ and do His will. It’s time to stop running and recognize that we are His children, that we are His people, that we must obey Him as faithful children. Let’s stop our running and let’s do what He has called us to do.
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