God pursues Jonah

In our last message we discussed a few things about Jonah:

1) He was the first prophet to be called to go to another nation and pronounce judgment upon it.

2) Jonah intentionally disobeyed God by going in the complete opposite direction as God told him to.

3) Jonah intended to leave his lineage, his calling, his religion, and his home so he would not have to obey God.

4) Jonah very quickly began paying the price for his disobedience.

Jonah made a big mistake that is common among Christians. He figured God would leave him alone if he sinned badly enough. Some might wonder why God didn’t just call another prophet to go to Nineveh. He could have. God can and will accomplish His purposes without us.

What Jonah did not understand is he was part of that purpose too. God was doing a work in Jonah’s life as well. Just as God would accomplish His purpose in Nineveh, He would also accomplish His purpose in Jonah. Through this situation God is placing a mirror in front of Jonah so he can see himself.

Jonah wasn’t as spiritual as he or others thought he was. This assignment proved that. God doesn’t save us ad let us be. He sanctifies us too. What we don’t see we won’t correct. God will do what He needs to do so we will see and remove the sins in our lives that are keeping us from holiness.

v. 4 Verse 3 says “But Jonah” Verse 4 says “But the Lord”. God responds to Jonah’s disobedience.

When a child of God runs from God:

His life will go downhill “down to Joppa, down in the boat”.

He will pay the price.

He will be pursued.

How does God pursue him? He sends a storm.

“A great wind upon the sea”

“A mighty tempest upon the sea”

When the child of God begins in disobedience the wind of the Holy Spirit will pick up.

Not a pleasant wind.

Not a wind that fills our sails and carries us along.

A hot wind.

A tempest in the soul.

A heaviness of the heart.

If we will not listen, the Lord may then send some disaster into our lives to get our attention.

There are false teachers who will tell you God never does anything that will hurt you. They haven’t read the Bible. God will go to extreme measures to get His children where they need to be.

“the ship was threatened to break up” The storm was so bad it was about to break the boat in two.

Let’s not blame God. It was the sin of Jonah that caused the storm. Sin always brings a storm. If it is not repented of the storm will only grow larger.

v. 5 “Then the mariners were afraid”

These were experienced sailors. It appears they were involved with some sort of importing/exporting goods (hurling the cargo). They had seen storms before. This storm was different. They believed they were all going to die.

“each cried out to his god” They were pagans. Religious, but wrong. They didn’t know any better. They knew they couldn’t save themselves so they each began to call on their own god for help.

This is an important point. Just as the false gods of these sailors could not save them, Nineveh’s gods could not save them either. That is one of the major points of this book.

People need to be saved.

There is only one God who can save people.

Someone must tell the people about the God who saves.

There is a storm headed to Nineveh in a little over a month. When it comes the people would call upon their false gods and those gods could not help them.

Just as Jonah was not available for the Ninevites, he was not available for these sailors either. Let’s look at what they do.

They hurl the cargo from the ship. This is common practice for a sinking ship. It also highlights how severe the situation was. This was their livelihood they were throwing overboard.

This was human effort. They were doing all they knew to do to save themselves. Human effort could not save them.

I want to point something out here: God can make men cry.

Grown men

Experienced men

Brave men

Religious men

God scares many a man before they will be saved.

Illustration: Philippian jailer about to kill himself when Paul and Silas were miraculously released from prison. He knew what would happen to him for letting these men escape. The Bible says he was trembling with fear. Paul shared the gospel with him, and he was saved.

Near death

Near divorce

Jesus himself said we should be afraid of hell (Matthew 10:28). Preaching on hell has scared many a man to repentance and faith.

“But Jonah had gone down into the inner part of the ship” He had separated himself from the others. Jonah is a miserable man. He wants to be alone.

“had laid down and fallen asleep” We might wonder how he could sleep in that storm.

We don’t know how tired he was. He could have had a lot of sleepless nights wrestling with God.

Remember this: Sin will numb you. It is like a drug. Also, Jonah did not possess the Holy Spirit as we do. The Spirit was with him but not in the measure that we experience Him in the New covenant.

The point is, the more you sin the easier it becomes. Jonah’s spiritual depression is obvious:

He is alone- isolated.

He is in the dark- a symptom of depression and sin.

He is asleep- another symptom of depression.

Everyone else is feverishly working to save themselves.

v. 6 The captain comes down to Jonah and has some harsh words for him.

“What do you mean sleeper?” Why in the world are you sleeping? How can you sleep through this?

The captain was the leader on the ship. He expected all hands on deck. There were two jobs they should be doing:

Lightning the ship.

Praying.

Jonah was doing neither. The captain rebuked him. He called him out. He woke him up.

“Arise” Get out of bed, get up on deck. Pray!

Pagans believed in many gods. They saw no contradiction I praying to more than one. They believed that certain gods could do certain things in nature. This captain hoped that perhaps Jonah’s God would have the power over this storm. All the others on board had already tried their god. Maybe Jonah’s God was the answer.

It appears he believes Jonah is their last chance. “That we may not perish” implies that.

God sends an unbeliever to preach a sermon to the prophet:

Rebuked for his laziness- not working.

Rebuked for his lack of compassion- didn’t seem to care.

Rebuked for his prayerlessness.

The captain doesn’t know he is a prophet. He sees him as a self-centered passenger.

There’s a valuable lesson for us here. One person’s sin can affect many others. All these people were about to die because of Jonah.

Achan’s sin affected the entire camp of Israel. Achan disobeyed God and as a result 36 men of Israel were killed in battle (Joshua 7:4-5).

Your sin can affect you and those closest to you. It can even affect generations after you. Sin will blind you to this truth. You may think “I’m only hurting myself.” That’s often not the case.

The encouraging thing about these verses is that God is not willing to let His child go. He is patient with us. He may let us stray for some time. God will come after us. He will get us back.

He will send a storm to scare us.

He will send a person to rebuke us.

Jonah should have considered the words of David in Psalm 139:7-12

Where shall I go from your Spirit? Or where shall I flee from your presence? If I ascend to heaven, you are there! If I make my bed in Sheol, you are there! If I take the wings of the morning and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, even there your hand shall lead me, and your right hand shall hold me. If I say, “Surely the darkness shall cover me, and the light about me be night,” even the darkness is not dark to you; the night is bright as the day, for darkness is as light with you.