JONAH CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
Here’s an old joke!
Three athletes are about to be executed.
One is a short dark haired hockey player; one is a bald headed tennis player, and the third is a tall blond haired soccer player.
The guard brings the dark haired hockey player forward and the executioner asks if he has any last minute request. He replies ‘No’ so the executioner sets him up and then turns and shouts to the firing squad: “Ready! Aim…”
Suddenly the hockey player yells out: “Earthquake!” Everyone is startled and starts looking around, and in the confusion the hockey player runs away and escapes.
The guard brings the next victim along: the bald headed tennis player. The executioner asks if he has any last minute request. He answers in the negative, so the executioner gets him ready then barks his order to the firing squad: “Ready! Aim...”
Suddenly the tennis player yells loudly as he can: “Tornado!” Everyone is distracted and starts to look up at the sky, and the tennis player quickly makes his getaway.
By now the tall blond haired footballer has got it all worked out. The guard escorts him forward and executioner asks if he has any last minute request. He replies ‘No’ and the executioner turns sharply to the firing squad and shouts: “Ready! Aim...”
And the soccer player bawls out: “Fire!”
We’ve all been in situations from which we’ve wanted to escape. I wonder if you’ve ever shot yourself in the foot by your decisions?
In God’s prophet Jonah we see a man who tried to make a getaway because he wanted his own way and not God’s way. As a result he suffered for it, but at the same time God’s measureless grace was displayed as well.
JONAH DISOBEYS
God had given Jonah a task – to proclaim God’s message to the city of Nineveh, capital of the foreign Assyrian Empire. But Jonah didn’t want the job. God said ‘Go’. Jonah said ‘No’. He took off. Instead of heading for Nineveh some 500 miles east of Jerusalem, he went sailing west towards Tarshish in Spain some 2000 miles away.
The question is: why? Why disobey? We can see some answers in the words of God’s command: “Go to the great city of Nineveh and preached against it because its wickedness has come up before me.”
(1) Jonah was afraid. Nineveh was the capital of the Assyrian Empire, a great enemy of Israel. It was great in size and status. It was also a wicked place - evil and opposed to the true God. It was Infamous for being brutal and merciless. ‘What will happen to me, a Jew, walking into that city declaring a provocative message?’
(2) Jonah was prejudiced. His thoughts probably went something like this: ‘These people belong to a foreign and godless nation; they have rejected the true God. They don’t deserve for God to have anything to do with them; why should they benefit? It’s the Jews who are God’s chosen people; the Assyrians have no place with Him.’
(3) Jonah was scandalized by grace. Jonah had enough knowledge of God, sufficient theological sense, to work out that God, by giving the Ninevites this warning, intended blessing for them! ‘God is so gracious that maybe He intends to spare the Assyrians. Yet, these people are Israel’s great enemy – surely it’s best they’re left spiritually dead and buried.’
So Jonah decided he’d run away from the LORD and make tracks for Tarshish. But was he that spiritually naïve to think that he could get away from God? Surely he knew that God was everywhere and had knowledge of everyone and everything?
PSALM 139:11,12 makes the point very clearly: ‘If I say, ‘Surely the darkness will hide me, and the light become night around me’, even the darkness will not be dark to you: the night will shine like the day, for darkness is as light to you.’
Jonah ‘ran away from the LORD’ in the sense that he excluded himself from God’s favour and service. As Gordan Keddie explains: ‘The person who chooses to flee from the presence of God…is refusing to serve God in the task he knows that the LORD has given him to do. The matter is primarily spiritual and only secondarily geographical. This is what we see in Jonah’s case.’
Now if as Christian believers we disobey God and refuse His will, we put ourselves out of God’s presence and the blessings of obedience. Don’t go there. It’s a hard and miserable place. Seek the joy of the obedient son. ‘Trust and obey, for there’s no other way, to be happy in Jesus, but to trust and obey.’
Jonah went to the seaport of Joppa, found a ship heading for his chosen destination and paid his fare. Every thing seemed to fall into place for Jonah but it didn’t change the fact that he had disobeyed God and that meant he’d eventually run into trouble. ‘God’s way of blessing for Jonah was in the east, towards Nineveh, but Jonah went west and into trouble.’ (Gordan Keddie).
GOD INTERVENES
(V3) ‘But Jonah ran away…’ (V4) ‘Then the LORD…’ Here in these two words: ‘but’ and ‘Then’ we see the God’s grace and God’s sovereignty in action.
Grace, because God could have justly dumped Jonah there and then and left him to himself and the consequences of his behaviour. But God didn’t! He was still in business with Jonah and serious about it. If Jonah knew just how serious, as he boarded the boat, it would have scared him to death.
Sovereignty, because God is in charge of the universe and nature is at His command. (V 4) ‘Then the LORD sent a great storm on the sea.’
This was no ordinary storm, or even a bigger than normal storm, it was the mother of all storms. ‘Such a violent storm arose that the ship threatened to break up. All the sailors [hardened, experienced seamen though they were] were afraid, and each called out to his own god. And they threw the cargo into the sea to lighten the ship.’
Disobeying God brings His discipline. When we won’t hear His Word He will make us feel His rod. The storm was produced because of Jonah’s presence. Our disobedience can affect other people and make life difficult for them. The sailors were distraught, almost beside themselves. So fearful were they that ‘each called out to his own god’. Such ‘gods’ were of course powerless and non-existent.
The sailors’ behaviour shows that there is in everyone a sense of God that lurks beneath the surface. It sometimes surfaces when we are in deep trouble, but even then it comes out all wrong. Our spiritually dark minds and hearts form a distorted and flawed vision. ‘All idols are the product of the human imagination.’ (R B Kuiper). So each sailor sought his own imagined god.
Hang on…what about Jonah? Where was he? (V 5) ‘But Jonah had gone down below deck, where he lay down and fell into a deep sleep.’
How do we explain this incredible behaviour? Well, people react differently in times of crisis. Some loose sleep; worry and fret. Others become lethargic, loose interest, disassociate themselves from the situation. I believe Jonah was in the second category. He had sunk into an oblivious, self-blinding delusion.
But Jonah had clearly been missed and the Captain hunted him down. He was amazed to find Jonah in such a sleep. (V 6) ‘Get up and call on your god! Maybe he will take notice of us and we will not perish.’ It seems as though the other gods had been found wanting – the distressed ship was running short of options.
JONAH IS EXPOSED
In their superstition the sailors cast lots (V7). This storm had really spooked them, it was so unusual. The lot was purely a chance operation but God wanted tight-lipped Jonah to be exposed. So He overruled the lot and caused it to point out Jonah as the culprit. The sailors fired their questions at him – what have you done to bring this trouble on us? Who are you; where are you from, and so on.
Jonah finally opened his reluctant mouth: he was a disobedient prophet of the true God. You see, by his actions he had hidden his real identity, but he couldn’t deny who he was in the end. Truth will out! (V 9) ‘I am a Hebrew and I worship the LORD, the God of heaven, who made the sea and the land.’
Jonah’s God was not like the sailors imagined gods, but the true and living God who is all-wise and powerful and who was in charge of the whole earth including the sea that was now raging against them. “Yes, it’s me: I’m the cause of this trouble. Hands up!”
It was an extraordinary testimony – despite all he had done to deny who he was, when his back was against the wall he couldn’t hide it. So it is for the Christian: we have to confess: ‘Yes, I belong to God. I am a citizen of His heavenly kingdom; I bear His name.’
This confession was a real turning point in Jonah’s experience as events to come demonstrated. The sailors were horrified. They realised that Jonah was responsible for what was happening: that His God had sent the storm because of his disobedience. (V10) ‘What have you done!’
Now that Jonah had been found out the next question on the sailors’ minds was: “What do we do now?” They maybe had hoped the storm would abate following Jonah’s exposure, but no, (11) ‘The sea was getting rougher and rougher…’ God had unfinished business!
Jonah then made an incredible request. The sailors must have done a double take: ‘What Jonah? what did you say?’ (V12) ‘Pick me up and throw me into the sea…and it will become calm. I know that it is my fault that this great storm has come upon you.’ Had Jonah gone mad? No this wasn’t some irrational impulse or suicidal depression. Jonah had had a sea change in his heart:
Firstly, Jonah acknowledged and accepted there and then that he had been in the wrong. He had sinned against God. He therefore didn’t deserve any favour at all.
Secondly, Jonah recognised that, right now, on this lurching, battered ship he was entirely at God’s mercy. He was ready to submit himself to whatever God wanted.
Thirdly, he had a care and concern for the sailors whom he had put in danger. No longer selfish he was self-less; prepared to sacrifice himself for their safety if that was God’s will.
In other words Jonah had repented. He was no longer hardhearted but meek and humble. That is the spirit every true believer should carry with them – ‘God I’m in your hands for you to do what you will.’
THE SAILORS ARE SAVED
In the midst of all these amazing goings on, something was happening to the godless hardened sailors. Instead of grabbing Jonah and hurling him overboard – ‘Good-riddance shark-bait!’ - they tried to save him instead!
(V13) ‘The men did their best to row back to land.’ It was back breaking, lung busting work, made all the harder by the fact that the sea, ‘grew even wilder than before.’ They finally realised that they had no alternative but to do what Jonah had asked: throw him overboard to what must mean certain death. But notice this. When the storm started they had, (V5) ‘each cried to his own god’ now (V14) ‘They cried out to the LORD, “LORD please do not let us die for taking this man’s life”’
Immediately after Jonah disappeared over the side of the ship the ‘raging sea grew calm.’ What an amazing impact this had on those sailors! (V16) ‘At this the men greatly feared the LORD, and they offered a sacrifice to the LORD and made vows to Him.’ They realised that they had been saved by Jonah’s sacrifice. No longer terrified and fearful of the storm, they were now awestruck and humbled by the actions of the true God, ‘the LORD, the God of heaven, who made the sea and the land.’ God was at work in their hearts – imparting new life and new understanding by His Spirit.
Their response was to offer a sacrifice showing their understanding that they too needed forgiveness; they needed God’s mercy. And by it they gave thanks and devoted themselves to the true God who is full of grace.
In the sailors salvation we can see the outworking of that great promise of God: ROMANS 8:28 (NASV) ‘And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose.’
Think about it. It was through his disobedience that Jonah came into contact with the seamen, yet God so worked that the sailors were saved through Jonah’s testimony. Jonah was running away as far as he could to the west to escape his God given duty in the east; now God had, as far as the east is from the west, removed the sailors’ transgressions.
This didn’t excuse Jonah’s sin or make his disobedience right, but it did demonstrated God’s amazing mercy and overruling power in bringing good out of what was bad. As R T Kendall has put it: ‘…the wonderful thing about the grace of God is that it has a way of making things appear that it was right from the start. You see, when God makes things work together for good He does it in such a way that it looks as though that was the way it was supposed to be. But you are not to say that.’
JONAHS SURPRISE
So what about waterlogged Jonah? Did the depths of the sea claim him? No, God wasn’t finished with him; He was only just beginning! Disobedient believer, God is never finished with you! He will not leave you alone: He will chase you down and bring Him back to Himself.
God supplied a rather unusual mode of transport for Jonah. (V17) ‘But the LORD provided a great fish to swallow Jonah, and Jonah was inside the fish three days and three nights.’
What was the fish? I don’t know. Does it exist now? I don’t know. Does it actually matter? No, it doesn’t. I guess it’d be nice to know, but it would add nothing to what God intended by recording this event. I think the Christian woman who encountered a sceptic on a plane shows us what it’s about: ‘A Christian woman was on an air flight reading her bible. When passenger sitting next to her saw her bible he asked: “You really don’t believe all that stuff in there do you?” The woman responded: “Of course I do, it is the Bible.” The man said: “Well what about that guy that was swallowed by the whale?” She replied: “Oh, you are talking about Jonah. Yes, I believe that. It is in the Bible.” He asked: “How do you suppose he survived all that time in the whale?” The woman said: “Well, I don’t really know. I guess when I get to heaven, I will ask him.” The man responded: “What if he isn’t in heaven?” The woman replied: “THEN YOU CAN ASK HIM.”’
As G. Campbell Morgan said: “Men have been looking so hard at the great fish that they have failed to see the great God”.
The book of Jonah shows you and I what we are like. The disobedience and failure of human nature is honestly and explicitly exposed. But at the same time we are shown what the God who made us is like. He pours out immense and overwhelming grace and mercy on undeserving sinners to bring us into His perfect will.
Wayward Christian, God will have mercy on you as He had mercy on a disobedient prophet. Don’t resist Him any more. Repent and humbly submit yourself to Him again.
Lost sinner, God will lavish His grace of forgiveness and new birth on you as He did on those spiritually lost sailors. Don’t harden your heart but repent for the first time and cast yourself on Jesus’ mercy.
AMEN
