When the word of God comes, it doesn’t usually come to pat us on the back and utter words of commendation. To be sure, it does that sometimes, but you might have to wait a while before you hear the words “well done”. More often than not, it comes to disturb us from our current state of equilibrium. It calls for action. It exhorts us. It moves us – from our zone of comfort.
So it is here with Jonah. It starts with an unmistakable imperative: “get up”. A wake up call indeed for the man of God. Rarely does the word of God say, “sleep on”. Jesus does use these words to disciples in the garden of Gethsemane, but only in sorrowful sarcasm and grievous frustration with their somnolent stupor.
Sometimes we close our eyes – cat like – and hope that whatever it is that is troubling us will pass. That we will be spared the call. That someone else would be woken up instead and that someone would respond. So that we can continue to sleep on, in willful ignorance. We may even think that we heard wrong: “eh”? we say and pull the blanket over our ears.
But God persists. He immediately follows up with the word “go”. About this time, you’d better be awake.
“Get up and go” (Jonah 1:2)
It is interesting that God is telling our man to go to Nineveh, “that great city”. Yes, God is mindful of cities, great cities. Get that? Not just wild wests, far out hamlets, hillside tribes, pacific islands and the back of the beyond. He doesn’t want the urban perishing at the expense of the rural. Quite often we think only of the one stray sheep; but the ninety nine flocking together are dear to Him as well. We stumble on this beautiful verse as we read about His vision: “For the earth shall be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea” (Habakkuk 2:14)
Jonah’s immediate response suggests that he is acting in obedience. For he does get up, and he does go……the world is impressed by his dramatic departure; what it does not know is that he has a different destination in mind.
Oh, the dichotomy between what we seem to be or what we want to be seen as, and what we really are inside, in our minds! Up to a point you can’t tell the difference. Men of God hear the voice of God and immediately swing into action. Wow! But could it be that they are slyly inserting their own agenda into God’s scheme of things even as the gullible public is still applauding their exemplary submission to God’s call?
Once you’ve made up your mind to move away from God, everything becomes hunky-dory. You are not put to any great hardship. The devil welcomes you with open arms and takes it upon himself to make all the arrangements. In no time at all you find yourself in Joppa, where there is a dazzling array of ships bound for attractive foreign destinations. Colourful flags of Cyprus, Greece, Italy, Egypt, Malta, Tunisia, Libya and Morocco are all gently fluttering in the breeze.
In these gorgeous vessels, there is a promise of plenty versus privation at home, selfish indulgence versus concern for the masses, life of gay abandon versus the straight and the narrow, carefree pleasure versus the weight of the word of God. Multiple opportunities shining invitingly, all of them bidding fair to take you away from God’s purpose for you. Ah, among them there is a ship ready and waiting to set out for Tarshish proudly sporting the Spanish flag!
You have to pay the price, though (Jonah 1:3) ! There is no free ride with the devil. If there are charges right at the beginning, you will discover it gets costlier as you go along.
Thus begins a journey that is clearly not in line with God’s will.
(refreshmysoulblog.blogspot.com)
Yes, all of life’s journeys may not be in accordance with the will of God. Some people take the view that everything that happens is so ordained by God: the pain, the injustice, the evil, the cruelty…. Surely the will of man has something to do with these at times? So, in a clash of wills, Jonah’s will – aided and abetted by the devil – prevailed over God’s (for a while at least.We’ll come back to this in a moment).
It is a good question to ask in the particular journey, venture, project, endeavour that you are embarked on, whether you are traveling with the devil or if you have God on board.
Jonah didn’t have God aboard.
But God had seen Jonah move up the gangway; no doubt he had smiled. Quo vadis Jonah? “Why do … people imagine a vain thing? (Psalms 2:1) “He that sits in heaven shall laugh”(Psalms 2:4). Yes, the sovereign God foreknew this aberration on the part of His servant. It doesn’t take long for Him to let Jonah know that He is the One who has got the whole world in His hands (Jonah 1:4). Yes, God is always in control. Jonah, you can never run away from the presence of the Lord. He is omnipresent. Come on, surely you know that! Oh then, the futility of it, the sheer inanity of such a misadventure!
God may not make it plain always but many a time we know whether we are in the will of God or otherwise. Sadly, sometimes even when we do know that we are not in the will of God, we persist – either because we are completely besotted in our willfulness or because we let ourselves be trapped by circumstances and cannot extricate ourselves.
I guess you could say that Jonah was in the permissive will of God, since his Tarshish excursion was not altogether blocked by God. Now just because God allows a certain thing to take place does not mean that that is His will and pleasure. It may be just our recalcitrance; He is noting it for sure but He may not prevent it. There are many things He could have done to stop Jonah from going including the most obvious one of terminating his life in any one of numerous ways, but God in His mercy didn’t do that.
He isn’t done with Jonah yet.
He may be a man of God, prophet, specially chosen for an important assignment…etc. etc. etc. but Jonah is still a work in progress. Aren’t we all?
God hadn’t made a mistake. In selecting Jonah for the mission to Nineveh, it appears His concern wasn’t confined to the hundred and twenty thousand plus Ninevites (Jonah 4: 11). The missionary also needed moulding! See what Paul has to say on the subject in Philippians 3:12.
Whenever there is a clash of the divine will and the human will sooner or later there is bound to be some disquiet and restlessness. So, it is no surprise really that a raging storm rocks the boat. The mariners are afraid and they cry out to their gods (Jonah 1:5).
God’s man living outside His will brings a lot more trouble than people who do not know Him. If there is trouble all around us, a little introspection may be in order; it is a good question to ask if we are the cause of the tempest. Are we in the eye of the storm? Instead of being the solution we are called to be, have we ended up being the problem ourselves?
But Jonah couldn’t be bothered. He goes off to sleep (Jonah 1:5) ! Sometimes we get so accustomed to the ways of the world that we forget that we are a peculiar people (1 Peter 2:9). It is such a long time since we followed the Lord; we have allowed ourselves to become acclimatized to our surroundings. We get comfortable living like people around us and tell ourselves that this is the norm. Like Jonah, we go to the bottom of the boat and blend seamlessly with the woodwork.
Spiritually dead.
And what a pity it is that people of other faiths have to point out our condition. “How can you sleep? Get up and call on your god“ (Jonah 1:6) comes the wake up call for the second time in a short while! “Our gods are silent, may be yours could help”, was the underlying message. Are we raising our voices in prayer and supplication when our society is in peril or do we choose to be indifferent?
Never mind if we are at the bottom most level, if we could change our posture but a little and get on to our knees, that would make a difference!
The fact that He was not in God’s will at this time however, does not make Jonah any less a child of God or indeed any less the object of His love and mercy. If anything, God launches His search and rescue mission for the runaway missionary. Searching was not a problem for God. There were many ships bobbing up and down the expanse of the Mediterranean but God knew which one needed a little extra attention. He knew exactly where Jonah was.
“Such knowledge is too wonderful for me” writes the Psalmist (Psalm 139:6) and goes on to ask with a flourish of rhetoric “Where can I go from your Spirit? Where can I flee from your presence?” (Psalm 139:7).
Yes, such knowledge should both encourage us and fill us with awe. God pursues His wayward ministers to the uttermost ends of the sea. Shouldn’t we be grateful that God doesn’t abandon us and leave us to our own devices? He never leaves us, nor forsakes us (Heb. 13:5).
After the initial instruction from God, there was nothing further from Him. No words of anger or rebuke but quite clearly He was speaking…..speaking through the elements that were raging. Once awake, Jonah understood this very well and when the sailors heard his story, they too did. There was no question in Jonah’s mind that the storm was on his account; he didn’t really need the lot to decide that (Jonah 1:7).
Do you have your ears attuned to listening to His voice? Have you heard God speaking nonverbally? Not having had the chance to undertake long ocean voyages, I tend – experientially – to associate clear air turbulence buffeting an aircraft with God speaking. “The voice of the Lord is over the waters; the God of glory thunders, the Lord thunders over the mighty waters” (Psalm 29:3)
The winds and the waves do not pose a problem to God. While they all so sweetly obey His will (Mark 4:39), it is the crown of creation that gives God a headache!
Whatever may be Jonah’s fault, there is one thing you cannot accuse him of. When questioned, he did not try to hide his identity. He was very clear as to who he was, where he came from and whom He worshipped (Jonah 1: 8-9). That’s a lot more than we can say about many people. They wander through life struggling with an existential question and with little idea as to what their beliefs are.
Do we know who we are? What we believe in? It is one thing to mouth the Apostle’s or Nicene creed week after week in the church, and quite another to sincerely believe it in your heart and confess it with your mouth (Romans 10:9-10). And to do it at a time when your life depended on your disowning your God, is quite something.
Bravo!
Yes, Jonah was brutally honest about himself, you might say even fatally honest. No fudging, no prevaricating, no hemming, no hawing. Nothing but the truth, the whole truth.
God was no doubt pleased. Repentance was not discernible yet, but there was acknowledgement of wrong. No cowardly denials a la Peter.
The situation was ripe for a turnaround, but how is this to be accomplished without affecting the plans of the Tarshish bound mariners? Is it right that he move further and further away from God’s plan for him even after he has “woken up”, simply because he had put himself willfully in a collective?
Many a time we find ourselves caught in a similar situation. We are in the wrong boat heading to a wrong destination, with the wrong company. No aspersions on the mariners; they were a hardworking, god fearing lot. Only they didn’t know “the Lord, the God of heaven, who made the sea and the dry land” (Jonah 1:9). God was arranging circumstances in such a fashion that a telling testimony came from the very mouth of the runaway prophet. Now, isn’t that amazing!
Wherever you find yourself – for whatever reason – and whatsoever the situation, you can still talk about the Lord! “Preach the word of God. Be prepared, whether the time is favorable or not” (2 Timothy 4:2).
That’s wonderful brother, but the fact remains that you are still headed the wrong way! There is the very real danger of the vessel breaking up because of you. Surely you don’t want the whole lot of them perishing. You better do something. Time for decisive action.
Jonah must be thrown out.
If you find yourselves similarly caught in a collective enterprise that operates outside the purposes and principles of God, if you have no business to be in that ship, if Tarshish is not your destination,
Get out!
While this poignant scene was being played out by the gunwale, the mariners sense the mighty intervention of God. The crew, who only nine verses before was crying out to its multiple gods, now with one voice started crying out to the Lord (Jonah 1:14). Hallelujah!
Down goes Jonah, and the sea becomes quiet.
The story should have ended right there in verse 15 of Jonah chapter 1 or at most at verse 16, where we see the mariners holding onto the Lord with fear and trembling. All that remained to be done was to write an unflattering epitaph for the man of God who met his Maker in the deep waters.
Jonah was prepared to sacrifice himself, but man’s heroics, however impressive do not define God’s ways. No personal glory should attach to the prophet though he may have sought martyrdom.
Fish in general are far more obedient than men. In fact their obedience to God is unquestioning. For instance, the big fish called for duty at this time knew precisely where it should be and at what instant; it didn’t remonstrate with God that the guy was after all a renegade and argue that he should not be provided special accommodation. It simply opened its mouth and took him in.
How important it is to open one’s mouth at the right time! Let alone utter a word of timely prophecy, why you might even end up with a resident prophet!!
Thus begins Jonah’s submarine return journey. The context is very different but it bears recalling that you’d be a fool indeed to imagine you can contravene God’s plans, frustrate His purposes; check out Isaiah 37:34
The man who in a fit of rebellion and wanton waywardness so jauntily clambered aboard the Tarshish bound vessel a few days ago, is now a subdued person, all at sea!
Broken
Like a horse, in order to be made fit for the Master’s use. Have we come to this point in our lives or are we running around making grandiose plans, nursing our own agendas and generally moving away from God?
If he’d despatched a church committee to hunt for a place to hold his private retreat, Jonah couldn’t have found a better venue than the belly of the fish! The currents can swirl, the waves can lash, but our man is safe in the very heart of the seas, and what is more he has all the time in the world to dwell reflectively on the dramatic events of the recent past that culminated in him being under water.
And Jonah prays the prayer of his life! Up to this point, communication with God was all one way. Now at last Jonah begins to grasp God’s greatness, love and mercy and concludes his prayer with the memorable words: “Salvation is of the Lord” (Jonah 2:9). Indeed.
While his lodgings were fairly comfortable for the three day journey, I suspect Jonah had nothing to eat during the retreat which made the whole session an extended fasting and prayer event. Well, fasting must eventually give way to facing real life issues; the Lord speaks to the fish one more time and the fish “prophetised”!
(touchoffire.com)
Nineveh is still in God’s mind. Some times we think that God doesn’t see or care. Or over time He forgets. But Jonah’s story tells us otherwise. Nothing of that sort. He still wants the Ninevites to hear the word, to heed the warning. And He needs a man to do this. And he isn’t about to let go of Jonah who has just undergone (pun intended) rigorous training.
So our man gets another opportunity. And the word of the Lord comes to him the second time, and this time around, Jonah is ready and willing. The fasting and prayer had prepared him well!
Have you moved away from God? There is hope for you. Come back. “Return unto the shepherd and bishop of your souls” (1 Peter 2:25). “In returning and rest shall you be saved, says the Lord” (Isaiah 30:15).
Nineveh was some 800 kilometers north east of Gath-hepher, Jonah’s home town and there is no mention in the Bible as to how he got there ; it is left to one’s imagination. And there is nothing about paying a price this time. All charges to God!
The Bible records only eight words of Jonah’s sermon: “Forty more days and Nineveh will be overthrown” (Jonah 3:4). The city was shaken. “The Ninevites believed God. A fast was proclaimed, and all of them, from the greatest to the least, put on sackcloth” (Jonah 3:5). And when the king of Nineveh hears Jonah’s warning, he promptly promulgates a city-wide repentance and declares an indefinite fast. I say, the contagion of fasting is catching fast!
Nineveh was ripe for the harvest (Luke 10:2). Though Jonah was the only labourer in sight, yet the task of preaching was not very difficult. No opposition. No protest. No resistance. They heard the message and they repented. Just like that. All that was needed was for them to hear the word. Some one had to preach. Oh yes, someone had to go there first. And how will anyone go and tell them without being sent? (Romans 10:15).
Jonah was the man
Once Jonah obeyed, he found that the Lord’s business was not cumbersome at all (Matthew 11:30). As we’ve already seen transport was not an issue. Though the city was so large that it needed three days’ journey to traverse, our man did only one day’s work. And he didn’t have to prepare a long sermon!
Basically he just had to be there and open his mouth (Psalm 81:10)!
Are you there for the Lord? Are you available? Are you anxious as to what you should speak? Jonah spoke but eight words. Are you worried about the response? The call is simply to raise your voice and cry. Will you cry against wickedness in high places, in low places. Will you make your voice heard?
From the way things unfolded, we come to the conclusion that had Jonah arrived on the scene earlier, much wickedness could have been prevented. Could this be our world in microcosm and we, the Jonahs? The Ninevehs of the world are waiting for the Jonahs of the world to turn up. Will you promptly arrive on the scene or will you head for Tarshish instead – where you have no business really – and waste precious time?
The Ninevites surprised Jonah with their reaction. And God changed His mind about destroying the city, much to Jonah’s chagrin. In fact Jonah was so upset that he didn’t want to live any longer. Why? What is the matter? His doomsday prophecy turned out to be a dud. Null and void. Cancelled out by God’s loving kindness and tender mercies. His self esteem punctured. Self righteousness injured. Jonah started accusing God and finding fault with Him for the goodness of His character. Boy, was he angry?
This raises a question as to what our motive is in preaching or in sharing the gospel. Do we want people to repent and turn around or are we more keen on our words of warning translating into reality? Is our ego so bloated that we cannot take being proven wrong even if it results in salvation to many? Do we find it difficult to share in the joys of heaven? “In the same way, there is joy in the presence of God’s angels when even one sinner repents” (Luke 15:10).
Sometimes in our righteous indignation, we may want wicked people to be punished. To receive their just deserts. Die. Not so God. God doesn’t want the wicked destroyed. Not His purpose at all. He wants them to mend their ways. Repent and live. Do I have any pleasure at all that the wicked should die?” says the Lord God, “and not that he should turn from his ways and live? (Ezek. 18:23) And , He is quite happy to “err” on the side of forgiveness, at the first sign of repentance.
Heaven they say, is full of surprises. Come say hello to the Assyrians!
As has already been suggested, it appears Jonah preached only for one day. Roughly 40,000 + people heard. 120000 + people got saved and animals too avoided destruction. Obviously this was not just man’s work (1 Cor. 3:6). No doubt God had been active, preparing the ground, giving them a heart of understanding that would respond to the word positively when presented with it. Yet humanly speaking it is a stupendous achievement! Statistically, Jonah was probably the most effective evangelist of all time!!
You might think that such a tremendous performance in the mission field calls for a glorious thanksgiving meeting. But what happens, alas, is quite the opposite. Instead of going to town to celebrate his success, Jonah goes outside the city to sulk (Jonah 4:5). While the angels were rejoicing Jonah was chafing. What a grump!
The work of ministry is a learning experience. There are always new lessons to learn about God. From the book of Jonah, it is clear that the Ninevites learnt their lesson. But Jonah himself? More than 2000 years later, the question mark still remains at the end of the book.
Wasn’t the sub-sea setting just perfect for your Retreat, Jonah?