Jonah Week 1: Jonah's Downward Path (Jonah 1:1-17)
Notes
Transcript
Today we start our series in the book of Jonah.
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.
The author of Jonah,
does not ease us into the story.
There is no setup,
no warning,
no soft entry.
The book opens with God speaking to one of His prophets.
V1-2
“Now the word of the Lord came to Jonah...
‘Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and call out against it,
for their evil has come up before me.’” (Jonah 1:1–2)
Witnessed systematically throughout Scripture—
from Genesis to Revelation—
is a consistent theological picture:
God sees and God witnesses everything.
Not just big things.
Not only public things.
Not occasionally,
surface-level things.
He sees everything...
Evil does not hide in the shadows from God.
Injustice does not slip past His gaze.
The cries of the abused,
the blood of the innocent,
the suffering of the forgotten—
they rise before Him,
like a witness in His court.
And yet,
there are seasons when it feels as though God is silent...
We look at the world and ask, Where are You God?
Why are children violated?
Why do the hungry starve?
Why do the wicked flourish while the righteous barely survive???
It is in these moments,
that it is vital to understand that:
God’s momentary silence is not His absence.
God’s patience is not permission.
His seeming delay is not indifference...
When God said Nineveh’s evil had “come up before” Him,
it was not because He had just noticed—
it was because the time had come,
for Him to deal with Nineveh’s sin...
God does not overlook sin.
He does not forget injustice.
He does not misplace righteousness.
Judgment will come.
Justice will be executed.
Every wrong will be addressed.
But it will be done on His timetable,
not ours...
In His way,
not according to our demands...
The story begins with a challenging command from God:
“Arise—and go.”
God calls His prophet to walk into Nineveh,
not to observe its evil,
but to confront it—
to call it out by name...
It is easy to think,
you have fire burning in your veins to speak up against evil,
when all you are doing is speaking from behind a keyboard.
It is easy to believe you have steel in your spine,
courage in your heart,
strength in your convictions,
when you only surround yourself with people,
who echo your complaints about the evil in the world.
It is easy to fake toughness and boldness
when nothing is truly on the line.
But it is a different story,
when God calls you to confront someone face to face,
eye to eye,
and call out injustice, impurity, and evil…
(Fake boldness… Brad and Mike vs Tim and Danny)
[True Boldness cost… Fake boldness is free and easy]
There was nothing Fake,
about the boldness needed from Jonah,
to call out and confront wicked Nineveh.
Jonah knew exactly how evil Nineveh was.
This was not fear of the unknown.
It was fear of something tangible and real.
Jonah had history with Nineveh.
He had personal reason to understand their wickedness.
Nineveh was the capital of the Assyrian empire—
a people who had relentlessly pursued the destruction of the Hebrew people.
They were not just enemies.
They were a looming nightmare that haunted generations.
The Assyrians were a treacherous people.
They did not simply defeat nations—
they erased them.
They sent a message to the world,
through their victories in battle...
Before capturing a city,
they would often parade captives outside the gates
and publicly torture them,
so that fear would take hold,
even before the battle began.
Men and children were slaughtered.
Women were taken captive.
Cities were decimated.
The people of Nineveh,
became a symbol of terror in the ancient world.
Even the mention of their name carried the weight of dread.
They were infamous for cruelty.
One king boasted of tearing the lips and hands from his victims.
Another king was infamous for flaying people alive.
And Jonah would have known well,
of their evil ways.
So when God said, “Arise, go to Nineveh,”
He was asking Jonah,
to walk straight into the belly of the beast—
the very heart of a capital city,
infamous for horror and brutality.
V3-5
But Jonah rose to flee to Tarshish from the presence of the Lord…
(when you reject God’s call… you start down a path of destruction)
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.
The author of Jonah intentionally highlights a downward path—
a descent Jonah chooses when he refuses God’s mission for his life.
The moment Jonah attempts to flee from the presence of the Lord,
he begins a downward spiritual descent.
What is astonishing is this:
Jonah was not a godless or ignorant individual.
He was not someone who knew nothing of God...
He was a prophet—
a man who knew the voice of the Lord,
knew the ways of God,
and yet somehow convinced himself
that he could outrun God...
It is fascinating how easily we can deceive ourselves,
and how the mind can begin to believe the most outrageous lies.
Just like Jonah,
we can allow our thoughts to be manipulated,
slowly shaped by the lies of the enemy,
until disobedience starts to feel reasonable
and rebellion begins to feel justified.
Jonah convinces himself that he can flee from God’s presence,
and with that lie in his heart,
he steps into a downward spiral...
Jonah should have realized that,
the same God who saw the great sin of Nineveh
was also witnessing his rebellion.
It is important to understand,
that,
God is omnipresent—
which means He is everywhere.
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!
3 The eyes of the Lord are in every place,
keeping watch on the evil and the good.
Not only is God watching Jonah’s rebellion,
he is present in the midst of it.
As Jonah begins his downward path,
this is what the authors records...
V4—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.”
At first glance,
this part of Jonah’s story seems simple:
God’s wrath and judgment coming down on a man in rebellion.
And certainly, God judges sin.
Jonah was in open,
active rebellion,
defying the very calling of God.
But all too often,
when we read a story like Jonah,
we breeze past something vital—
something deeper than the surface.
God sends a storm out at sea in the midst of Jonah’s rebellion,
and it is easy to conclude:
that’s it.
Clear-cut.
Judgment delivered.
But have you ever paused to wonder:
Why did God take the time to deal with Jonah?
Why not simply write him off,
and move on to another prophet who would be willing to answer the call?...
The answer is not complex or difficult:
God dealt with Jonah because He still loved His prophet.
Sometimes we experience God’s discipline as an irritation.
We see His judgment as harsh,
even cruel.
But perhaps—
we are missing the mercy hidden in it all.
We should pause and ask ourselves—
what if the very thing we see as God’s wrath and judgment
is, in reality, God extending mercy to us?
What if what we perceive as God’s hand of punishment for our sin,
is actually more of His hand of mercy,
because He refuses to let us perish in our own mess?
What may feel like harshness from God,
may be His guiding hand,
turning us away from a downward path,
and leading us back to the path of righteousness.
God could have let Jonah go his own way,
to perish,
to be forgotten,
but He did not.
God still loved Jonah enough to intervene.
God still loved Jonah enough to send the storm,
to shake him,
to confront him,
and to bring him back to the calling as a prophet of God...
(Jonah 1:6-12..... the storm is raging… sailors are afraid...)
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.”
(Jonah knows the right things to say...)
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.”
I am convinced that,
this story could have gone in a very different direction here.
Jonah,
in this moment,
could have responded with repentance instead of resignation.
He could have said,
“Lord, I’ve disobeyed You.
Let me turn back to Tarshish,
so I can go to Nineveh,
and do what You have commanded me.”
But as the storm rages with ever-increasing intensity,
Jonah shows an attitude of quitting rather than repentance.
He tells the sailors, “
Throw me overboard—
this storm is my fault.
God has sent it as judgment on me.”
One could wonder,
if Jonah would have seen the storm not as a final judgment,
but as a wake-up call,
would he have responded differently?
Or
Perhaps Jonah would rather die,
than go to the wicked city of Nineveh.
Whatever the case,
Jonah tells the sailors to throw him overboard.
And this leads us into the striking picture the author gives us:
these godless sailors—
men who do not yet know God—
show a greater fear of God in this moment,
than the very man who had been called to be a prophet of God.
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.
It is important for us to understand this truth:
God works in spite of our mistakes,
in spite of our brokenness,
and in spite of our rebellion.
God continues to work and to weave His plan throughout human history,
even when the life of His prophet is in complete disarray.
Jonah’s rebellion led him to encounter,
these godless men.
And though Jonah was walking a downward path,
God still used that very moment
to reveal Himself to lost souls.
This highlights a message the author of Jonah wants us to understand:
God loves all people.
And out of that love for all people,
He wants them to be saved.
9 The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance.
Sometimes we assume God works because of something we did right,
but often times,
God is working in spite of what we are doing wrong.
What we thought we had figured out,
we may have actually misunderstood—
yet God still used it for His glory.
Though Jonah missed the mark greatly,
God was still at work—
even among the lost sailors.
Lost sailors who,
after seeing God’s power at work,
mad vows to serve Him...
The sailors, who at first spoke of the God of heaven and earth
as “Jonah’s god” with a lowercase g,
began to see Him not as Jonah’s god,
but as the Lord of their own lives,
vowing to serve Him as Lord...
As this is happening with the sailors,
the author closes out the chapter with this...
17 And the Lord appointed a great fish to swallow up Jonah. And Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights.
We close this morning with Jonah’s final decent,
as he goes down into the belly of a fish...
First step leads in a direction…
Momentum…
Jonah vs Mariners...
