For those of you who are familiar with the story
of Jonah, what is the first thing that normally comes to mind when you think
about it? For most people, the story of
Jonah is a story about a man getting swallowed by a fish. There have been numerous books, Bible
studies, songs, and cartoons made about the story of Jonah with titles such as
“Jonah and the Whale,” “A Whale of a Tale,” or “Jonah and the Big Fish.” This
is sad because the story of Jonah is about so much more than a man being
swallowed by a fish. G. Campbell Morgan once said, “Men have been looking so hard at the great fish that they have failed
to see the great God.”[1] The book of Jonah is about a big God whose
power and mercy are unfathomable.
In Jonah 1:1-16,
we read about this God’s merciful and powerful pursuit of a fugitive and how
futile it really is to run from Him.
Whether we would call ourselves fugitives our not today, this passage is
a powerful reminder about the futility of
running from God. My prayer today is
that any of us who find ourselves running from God will beg God for grace to
stop running from Him and turn to Him with all their hearts.
[1:1] Now
the word of the LORD came to Jonah the son of Amittai, saying, [2] “Arise,
go to Nineveh, that great city, and call out against it, for their evil has
come up before me.” [3] But Jonah rose to flee to Tarshish from the
presence of the LORD. He went down to Joppa and found a ship going to Tarshish.
So he paid the fare and went down into it, to go with them to Tarshish, away
from the presence of the LORD.
[4] But
the LORD hurled a great wind upon the sea, and there was a mighty tempest on
the sea, so that the ship threatened to break up. [5] Then the mariners
were afraid, and each cried out to his god. And they hurled the cargo that was
in the ship into the sea to lighten it for them. But Jonah had gone down into
the inner part of the ship and had lain down and was fast asleep. [6] So
the captain came and said to him, “What do you mean, you sleeper? Arise, call
out to your god! Perhaps the god will give a thought to us, that we may not
perish.”
[7] And
they said to one another, “Come, let us cast lots, that we may know on whose
account this evil has come upon us.” So they cast lots, and the lot fell on
Jonah. [8] Then they said to him, “Tell us on whose account this evil has
come upon us. What is your occupation? And where do you come from? What is your
country? And of what people are you?” [9] And he said to them, “I am a
Hebrew, and I fear the LORD, the God of heaven, who made the sea and the dry
land.” [10] Then the men were exceedingly afraid and said to him, “What is
this that you have done!” For the men knew that he was fleeing from the
presence of the LORD, because he had told them.
[11] Then
they said to him, “What shall we do to you, that the sea may quiet down for
us?” For the sea grew more and more tempestuous. [12] He said to them,
“Pick me up and hurl me into the sea; then the sea will quiet down for you, for
I know it is because of me that this great tempest has come upon you.”
[13] Nevertheless, the men rowed hard to get back to dry land, but they
could not, for the sea grew more and more tempestuous against them.
[14] Therefore they called out to the LORD, “O LORD, let us not perish for
this man's life, and lay not on us innocent blood, for you, O LORD, have done
as it pleased you.” [15] So they picked up Jonah and hurled him into the
sea, and the sea ceased from its raging. [16] Then the men feared the LORD
exceedingly, and they offered a sacrifice to the LORD and made vows. (Jonah
1:1-16 ESV) So how does this passage illustrate the futility of running
from God?
I.
The Tragic Portrait of a Fugitive Before God (1:1-10)
Our story begins with “the word of the LORD” coming to Jonah “the son of Ammittai.” Jonah
was a prophet in the northern kingdom who prophesied during the reign of Jeroboam
II (2 Kings 14:25). God tells His prophet here to go to the “great city” of Nineveh and to deliver a
word of judgment “against” it because
“their evil” had come up before God. Nineveh
was the capital of the Assyrian empire, and the Assyrians were a cruel and
ruthless people. This word of judgment
immediately touches on a major theme in the Minor Prophets: that YAHWEH is the
God of the nations, to whom the whole world is morally accountable and will
answer.
Jonah, however, does not obey the Lord’s command
to go to Nineveh. As a matter of fact,
he flees in the exact opposite direction! That is the significance of our being told
that Jonah is going to “Tarshish”
three times in verse 3. Tarshish was in
the opposite direction from Nineveh,
possibly on the other side of the known world at the time in Southwest Spain.[2] This is why I call Jonah a fugitive. A fugitive is someone who is on the run, and Jonah
is running from “the presence of God”
in this chapter.
What I want to point out in this passage is how someone
who is running from God is painting a sad picture with his or her life. A sad picture of Jonah begins to emerge as he
chooses to run from His calling and His God.
First of all, notice that in disobeying God, Jonah is running away from “the presence of the LORD” (Yahweh). He, like Adam and Eve, is running away to
hide from the God whom He was created for.
Notice also how in this passage, pagan sailors show more spiritual
maturity than Jonah does. When the storm
comes, the captain of the ship has to wake Jonah up and tell him to pray (6),
which is of course the last thing people want to do when they are running from
God! Lost men have to teach Jonah
theology: he tells them that he is running from the God “who made the sea and the dry land,” to which they reply, “What is this that you have done!” These men are pointing out to Jonah how
futile (and foolish) it is to think that he can run or sail away from the God
who made the land and sea! Jonah claims
to fear Yahweh (9), but it is the pagan sailors who actually demonstrate the
fear of Yahweh. Jonah begins the chapter
as a faithful prophet and ends up a fugitive who becomes fish food, while the
lost sailors start our as pagan polytheists and end up worshippers of the one
true God. This is a sad picture
indeed!
Now before we are too hard on Jonah, let’s
remember this morning that we are all fugitives. Anytime we disobey God, we are running from
Him. Sometimes we even run and hide in
plain sight in the church. We come to
church just enough to keep anyone from suspecting that we are running, when the
truth is that we haven’t read our Bible in months, we haven’t shared the gospel
with anyone in years, and we haven’t prayed in so long that it would be awkward
now if we did. Have you ever been closer
to God than you are now? If so, remember
that God hasn’t moved, you have. Is
there something God has told you to do, maybe something specific in His Word,
that you are not doing? We need to be
careful not to throw Jonah under to bus too quickly this morning, because he is
not the only fugitive under the spotlight; we all are! But there is good news today for
fugitives.
II.
The Relentless Pursuit of God (1:4-16)
This passage not only paints the tragic picture of
being a fugitive before God, it also describes the relentless pursuit of
fugitives by their God. Charles Spurgeon
once called God the “Hound of Heaven,”
and we see Him with His nose to the ground in this passage! This passage is an awe-inspiring display of
how God apprehends this fugitive with His sovereign
power and mercy.
First, notice the
exercise of God’s sovereign power over creation in sending the storm to stop
Jonah from going to Tarshish: “BUT the
LORD hurled a great wind upon the sea,” causing a “mighty tempest” that threatened to break up the ship (4). This storm puts these seasoned sailors into a
fit of desperation, causing them to call upon every “god” they can think of and to hurl all the ship’s cargo
overboard. When these efforts fail, we
see the exercise of God’s sovereign
power again in the casting of the lots (7-8), which fall upon Jonah! Proverbs
16:33 says, “The lot is cast into the
lap, but its every decision is from the LORD.” The
third exercise of God’s sovereign power is seen in His thwarting the sailors’
efforts to return Jonah to shore (13).
Here God breaks the will of these sailors just as He is in the process
of breaking the will of His fugitive prophet.
While God’s sovereign power is pretty explicit in
this chapter, what may be more implicit is the display of God’s mercy in this
pursuit. Make no bones about it; Jonah
deserves to be destroyed for his
rebellion against God’s command. There
are other prophets in the Old Testament with whom God was not so patient. But God doesn’t destroy Jonah, and though the
experience is painful, He saves Jonah from His own rebellion and teaches him
how pointless it is to run from God. God
pursues the pagan sailors in this story by having a rebellious prophet proclaim
His greatness to them and leading them to obey and worship Him. In saying that, notice that God’s truth is
not shackled by the motives of those who proclaim it.
What do we learn here? We learn that God’s sovereign and merciful
pursuit of His own is both relentless
and unstoppable. This is the lesson that Job learned: “I know
that you can do all things, and that no purpose of yours can be thwarted.” (Job 42:2
ESV) Or listen to the David in Psalm
139:7-12: “[7] Where shall I go
from your Spirit? Or where shall I flee from your presence? [8] If I
ascend to heaven, you are there! If I make my bed in Sheol, you are there!
[9] If I take the wings of the morning and dwell in the uttermost parts of
the sea, [10] even there your hand shall lead me, and your right hand
shall hold me. [11] If I say, “Surely the darkness shall cover me, and the
light about me be night,” [12] even the darkness is not dark to you; the
night is bright as the day, for darkness is as light with you.”
Did you know that one of the worst things that God
can do is simply give us over to our own devices, to just let us keep
running? He is not obligated to pursue
us. That’s part of the bad news. The good news is that the very fact that you
are here today is evidence that the Hound of Heaven is hot on your trail! He is relentlessly pursuing you today, and Philippians 1:6 promises that if you
are a believer, God will finish what He started in you. Running will get you nowhere. Will you stop running today?
III.
The Greatest Need of Fugitives Before God (12-16)
The greatest need for fugitives before God is to turn to God in desperation. It is to come out into the light with our
hands up in full surrender to God! I
want to point out a few things that are characteristic of truly turning to God
in faith. The first characteristic of a
true turning to God is desperation. It
is obvious that these sailors are desperate, and God uses that desperation to
teach us about Himself. I think this is
one reason that God does not let the sailors bring Jonah back to shore, because
it is when He is drowning in the water that he finally turns to God completely
in faith (2:7).
The second characteristic is the confession of sin (12). Notice here that Jonah does confess his sin,
accept his fate, and offer to sacrifice himself to save the people on board. This is a major turning point in his
character. A third characteristic is the
fear of the LORD (5,10,16). The fear of these sailors is a neat
progression in this account: they progress from fearing the storm to fearing
the God of the storm, and like the disciples in the boat with Jesus, they are
more afraid after the storm than they are during it! A fourth characteristic of truly turning to
God is prayer (14). Finally, obedience
and worship is also a
characteristic of truly turning to God.
What is interesting about the response of these sailors in verse 16 is
that it is a typical Israelite response to Yahweh’s deliverance (Psalm 116:17). So this is how you turn to God today: in
desperation, pray to Him and confess your sin, and then demonstrate your fear
of Him by obedience and worship. Will
you do so?
There are some interesting parallels between Jesus
and Jonah. Jesus also slept during a
storm that His disciples were in, only when He woke up demonstrated that He too
possesses sovereign power over creation by calming the storm (Mark 4:35-41). Jesus also offered Himself a sacrifice to
save others. The difference is that here
the “innocent” must sacrifice the guilty in order to be spared, but on the
cross, it is the innocent who was sacrificed in order to spare the guilty. May this story today point us today to an infinitely better substitute whose work
on the cross is the clearest example of the extent to which God will
relentlessly go to have His people.
1 comment:
Powerful sermon from my pastor.
Post a Comment