The Anatomy of Disobedience

Introduction

Prophetic books normally record prophecy. They are a collection of the words that God gives a prophet.

The book of Jonah is considered a prophecy, but there is only one verse in the entire chapter that is Jonah’s prophecying. The rest of the chapter is the story of how Jonah got to Nineveh.

In Jonah’s story, we found ourselves. The fact that Jonah wrote the story for us to learn is a great showing of how God’s mercy caught Jonah. My prayer is that God’s mercy catches you today too.

Read Jonah 1:1-6

Jonah 1:1–6 ESV

Now the word of the Lord came to Jonah the son of Amittai, saying, “Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and call out against it, for their evil has come up before me.” 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. 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. 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. 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.”

Explanation

Jonah 1:1 “Now the word of the Lord came to Jonah the son of Amittai, saying,”

Now, we need to stop right here. We know the story of Jonah. What is Jonah’s first sin? He took the word of God for granted.

What a great grace the Word of God is. Let’s imagine for a moment that God spoke to you audibly and told you to do something. How do you miss out on such a blessing or take it for granted. And yet here we are. We are so close to the word of God that it has become familiar. Undervaluing the Word of God comes in a variety of forms:

We minimize the authority of God over our lives.

We count the commands of God as optional.

We esteem the reality of God’s word very little.

We are not drawn to the word in a supernatural, spirit-filled way.

Tim Keller // “Jonah concluded that because He couldn’t see any good reasons for God’s command, that there couldn’t be any.”

To the next point, we need to talk about Jonah’s name. The book of Jonah is rife with Hebrew nuance. Jonah’s name means, “dove.” And Jonah’s father’s name is Ammitai which means, “truth,” so there is a large possibility that Jonah was born into the home of a prophet with the expectation that he would also be a prophet. Now Jonah’s name is important because doves are all over the Bible, and the represent the good will of God and the provision of God.

We see doves all over the Bible.

This is seen firstly in the dove that brought back a branch to Noah’s ark so that he would know that the flood waters were receding.

It is seen secondly in God’s allowance of a dove in Levitical offerings of a lamb, calf or bull could not be afforded.

It is finally seen in the Spirit of God descending on Jesus like a dove.

It is ironic that Jonah was in every way attempting to not live up to His name. As the name and calling are given to Jonah, so God had called him to live that life.

We have not been given a name, but we have been given a gospel.

We are stewards of that word and calling.

Jonah 1:2 ““Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and call out against it, for their evil has come up before me.””

In this verse, we see the full calling of God.

“Arise” or “Get up”

There is something that just eats away at moms; when you are sitting on the couch and you have made a mess in the house and you aren’t lifting a hand to clean anything. What do moms say? They say, “GET UP and do the dishes or GET UP and clean the house.”

God tells Jonah to get up and go. Jonah gets up and goes back to sleep. Jonah isn’t ready for action, and He reveals his heart.

“and go to Ninevah”

God tells Jonah where to go.

He is going to Nineveh, the capital of the Assyrian empire, the wealthiest and strongest nation in the known world.

“and cry out against them, for their sin has come up before me”

What does this mean?

There is a threshold of what God tolerates concerning sin in a nation. And from the foundation of the world, God at some point has a limit and ends that nation. Assyria is at that point.

God has a limit as to what he will tolerate in a nation. Nations rise and fall, and the Lord judges kingdoms.

Jonah is given the task to cry out against them or in other words, “to reveal to them their sin and their destruction because of their sin.”

This message will be an affront to the people. However, for those who need the message and respond to the message, it will be a message of truth and peace.

What an unloving thing to do. To go somewhere you don’t know to a people you don’t understand and tell them about their sins.

They ALL GOT SAVED.

We live in this world where we want God to affirm our lives all the while God is saying, “I want to make you like me!” What is better? For God to look at your small and broken life and say, “You’re good.” Or for God to be honest about where you are so that he might save you, redeem you, and make you into the image of his perfect Son. The second is FAR better.

Jonah 1:3 “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.”

Jonah turns the other direction. In fact, I have a map here today that I want to show you. Here is Nineveh, and here is Joppa. And HERE is Tarshish.

Jonah is told to go to NYC, but instead, he gets on a boat in Los Angeles bound for Tokyo. A blatant disregard for God and God’s calling on His life.

This begs the question: Why wouldn’t Jonah go to Nineveh? You remember when I told you about Nineveh and its sins a few moments ago. That’s why. The best way I can describe the Assyrian empire is to not describe it. As a pastor, I think it is important to lay the word bear and not mince words, but I cannot in good conscience talk publically about the war crimes of the Assyrian empire. They committed some of the most foul, cruel, and heinous crimes against mankind. They were greatly feared

Finally, Jonah ran from the presence of God. This little phrase has MASSIVE ramifications for us today.

If God is omnipresent, how can you flee his presence? Psalm 139:7–8 “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!”

You can only be so close to the Lord and actively disobey Him. Every decision you make to follow the Lord will lead you closer to His presence, and every decision you make to disobey Him will lead you further from His presence.

Jonah 1:4–5 “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. 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.”

God, in his great mercy, does not leave us in our sinful states. He is the great pursuer of the hearts of the people around us AND our hearts.

Tim Keller // “God is both too holy and too loving to either destroy Jonah or to allow Jonah to remain as he is, and God is also too holy and too loving to allow us to remain as we are.”

Once you have given your life to God, He won’t leave it alone. He will pursue and persuade and help and renovate and love and embrace you until you give everything to Him.

Because of God’s mercy, sin always wrecks your life in some way or another. In Jonah’s it was large, real, and drastic. Most often, it is small, slow, and steady.

The sovereignty of God and the smallness of man is contrasted in these verses. It shows how futile Jonah was to thwart God’s plan.

A little note on the translation. When you see a unique word used over and over again in the same passage, pay attention to it. In this passage, the word is “hurl.” Now, I was at King’s Island this week, and we aren’t talking about that kind of hurl. I am talking about to throw something with great force. The only other instance this word is used in the OT is when Saul hurls a spear at David to kill him.

In this passage we see the word used four times (two I will cover and two Kevin will cover): God hurls a storm onto the sea, and the best the fishermen could do is hurl their cargo off the boat to keep it from sinking.

You can no more thwart the plans of God with your disobedience than you can block out the sun with your pinky finger.

Jonah was fast asleep. Now, doesn’t this strike you as a little strange. Have you ever known you NEEDED to do something, but decided to do otherwise.

Sleep is one of many forms of self-medication. Self-medication is when we find something to fill our hearts and distract ourselves from God, because we know we are living in disobedience. God, by His grace, never lets you stay there.

Just because you don’t feel the presence of God, does not mean He isn’t pursuing you.

Self-medication only makes matters worse, because it drives us further and further away from the only one who can truly save us from our misery.

Are you numbing the Spirit of God’s prompting on your life with your phone, your television, what you see on the news, or so many activities you never have time to sit.

Jonah 1:6 “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.””

This story is not the only story of a man asleep at sea.

Matthew 8:23–27 “And when he got into the boat, his disciples followed him. And behold, there arose a great storm on the sea, so that the boat was being swamped by the waves; but he was asleep. And they went and woke him, saying, “Save us, Lord; we are perishing.” And he said to them, “Why are you afraid, O you of little faith?” Then he rose and rebuked the winds and the sea, and there was a great calm. And the men marveled, saying, “What sort of man is this, that even winds and sea obey him?””

I always take comfort in the fact that Jonah, in his disobedience, was the cause of the storm upon the sea, and Jesus, in His obedience, was the one who calmed the sea.

In the storm, Jonah was hiding from the consequences of his actions. In the storm, Jesus was calmly sleeping, because He is the master of the storms.

Invitation

Our disobedience is no challenge and no surprise to our Lord.

Jesus made a way on the cross for us to come free from our disobedience.