October 7, Jonah 1
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. - Jonah 1:17
Jonah is one of the best known and least understood books in the Bible. Small children can tell about Jonah's misadventures because they've sung the song about him in Sunday School. Adults with no background in Bible study and no faith in God usually understand a literary reference to Jonah.
Jonah's name means "Salvation is of the Lord." He was a contemporary of the prophet Amos. But Jonah was not sent to preach to apostate Israelites as Amos was. Jonah's mission was to Gentiles. God told Jonah to go to Nineveh, the great wicked city of Assyria, Israel's fierce and ruthless enemy.
Jonah had gained national recognition as a true prophet of God when he predicted the restoration of the northern territories of Israel. His prediction came true during the reign of Jeroboam II. But this assignment to warn the people of Nineveh of impending doom could have made Jonah more of a traitor than a hero in the eyes of his fellow Israelites.
Jonah knew the Lord, but he did not always behave as if he did. (Do we?) Jonah almost surely knew the history of the nation and the psalms of David. He knew there was no way to escape the presence of the Lord. But that was what he tried to do. After the Lord told Jonah to go to Nineveh and cry out against it, he went in the opposite direction and paid his own fare on a ship bound for Tarshish. (People who disobey God always have to pay the fare for doing so.) Jonah didn't share God’s great heart for sinners. He didn't want to warn Israel's archenemy of impending doom. He didn't want them to repent because he knew God would graciously relent from his announced intention. (We have the gospel and the commission to carry it to everyone. Do we know God and share his desire to save people?) Jonah found a circumstance that enabled him to disobey God when he just so happened to find a ship that was going the opposite direction from where God told him to go. (Satan is quite good at presenting opportunities for us to disobey God, too.)
God hurled a great storm that threatened to sink the ship and the disobedient prophet. Jonah's traveling companions were seasoned seafarers. But these pagan mariners were terrified by the raging storm. They cried out to their gods. They found Jonah asleep below deck in the ship and insisted that he pray to his God to save them. (Are we peacefully sleeping in the midst of danger because we are at peace with God, or because we're exhausted from trying to escape doing his will?)
I've asked these parenthetical questions to help us examine ourselves. Are we more like Jonah than we'd like to admit?
Let's remember that Jonah was very much like the nation of Israel. Both he and they knew God and what God commanded them to do, but they didn't want to obey. He was also like his countrymen in that he didn't want Nineveh to be spared. The Israelites never lived up to God's ideal that they should be a light to the pagans around them who did not know the true and living God.
But in other ways, Jonah also reminds us of Jesus. Like Jesus, Jonah was willing to die to save his companions onboard the imperiled ship. And Jesus himself used what happened to Jonah after the sailors threw him overboard to illustrate his own death, burial and resurrection. God is all-powerful and does exactly as he pleases. In this chapter, God hurled the storm at Jonah's getaway vessel. When the sailors cast lots, it reminded me of one of Solomon’s proverbs. That verse from Proverbs says the outcome of the lot is in God's hands. And when the lot fell on Jonah and the sailors reluctantly threw Jonah overboard, God had prepared a great fish to swallow Jonah. God was in control of it all.
Jonah is a story that shows us the great, patient and merciful heart of God. He wanted to save those great sinners in Nineveh. And he wanted to rehabilitate his disobedient prophet and put him back on the right path.
Do you see that there is much more to this book than just a big fish story? It teaches us so much about our God and ourselves. From this chapter, let's take away a fresh sense of God's awesome power and deep love that longs to restore lost people to himself. And let's remember that willful disobedience to God's plain commands will get us, like Jonah, into deep trouble.
Copyright © 2024 by Michael B. McElroy. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Today in God's Word—October 2024
East Tallassee Church of Christ
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