God sends a furious squall upon the sea, forcing Jonah to confess. The panicked sailors pray to God for mercy and toss Jonah overboard, but God catches him with a fish.
Thank you very much, that was beautiful. Turn, if you will, in your Bibles to Jonah 1 as we continue our evening study in the Book of Jonah. And as you do, I’d like to tell you about a conversation that I had with a co-worker recently when I was working as an engineer. We were talking about hope, and I said that it was important for us to have three kinds of hope. We have to have short-range hope, an intermediate hope, and then an eternal hope. Now, we as Christians know all about eternal hope, don’t we? Eternal hope is that certainty that we have that when we die, we’re going to go to heaven, that all our sins are forgiven. It’s something that is intimately connected with our faith in Jesus Christ. And by believing in Christ, we have a sure and certain hope of heaven.
What are those other two hopes? Well, they have to do with what’s going on in your life right now. It has to do with whether you like what you’re going to have for dinner tonight or what’s facing you tomorrow at work. That’s the short-term hope. Maybe things right now in your life aren’t going so well. And then there’s that intermediate hope which has to do with do you like the flow of your life, the direction, where it’s heading. That’s when you start thinking about career, your kids, your life, just the bigger picture.
Now, God in his grace has covered all of these things, but he’s done it in different ways. For example, the eternal hope we know, comes through faith in Jesus Christ. But what about these other two? What doctrine covers intermediate hope and immediate hope? I think it’s the doctrine of providence, the doctrine of providence. Can anyone give me a definition? What is providence? When you think of providence, what do you think about? The Lord will provide, okay. When you say that you believe in providence, what are you talking about, what are you saying that you believe?
That God is orchestrating the events in our lives. Any other thoughts on providence, when you say that the Lord will provide?
Absolutely. God is always awake. He’s vigilant watching over. Anyone else? When you think of the phrase the Lord will provide, what do you think about? This is a… Go ahead.
When you call on the phone it always open and never busy. I love that. That’s great. God is listening. All right.
Here’s a couple of scriptures related to it that Jesus teaching on providence said that not even a sparrow falls to the ground apart from the will of your heavenly Father. Think about that one. And he said, you’re worth more than many sparrows. So, if God is watching over and caring for, shall I say sovereign over the falling of a sparrow, how much more over the events of your lives? Now all of you come here tonight with various struggles, various issues going on. I’d like you to meditate tonight on the doctrine of providence. We’re going to see God’s sovereign control over many things in this chapter, Jonah 1. Here’s another question for you. How many have you ever heard the expression, the hound of Heaven?
The Hound of Heaven. It’s a poem. What does it refer to? The Hound of Heaven. What does that refer to?
Church members
Never gives up.
Andy
Who never gives up?
Church members
God.
Andy
God never gives up. So, God is the Hound of Heaven. A hound is a determined animal, isn’t it? Once he’s on the scent, he pursues, and he is relentless until he gets what he is looking for. And the person who wrote that poem, the Hound of Heaven, refers to God that way. And I think that really, we see that in this chapter. God wants something done in Nineveh, and he’s chosen his man to do it. And the man is Jonah, and God is not going to give up. He’s going to move heaven and earth. He’s going to bring storms; he’s going to bring fish. He’s going to bring everything it takes to get this one man to do the job he wants to do, and I think it really is summed up with a country preacher. Really the story here we’re going to follow is a story of a storm, but we know there’s more going on here than the story of a storm. A storm which comes up, which rises to a certain climax and then miraculously disappears all at once. That’s the big picture.
But what’s going on spiritually? What’s going on beneath the scene? It really is the story of a wrestling match or shall I even say a boxing match between God and Jonah. And this country preacher said, “Let me tell you something. Your arm is too short to box with God.” God is going to get what he wants, and if he wants you to do something, you’re going to do it ultimately. God is sovereign over all things. We’re going to see that today. So, let’s read Jonah 1 and pick up where we left off last week.
The word of the Lord came to Jonah son of Amittai: “Go to the great city of Nineveh and preach against it, because its wickedness has come up before me.”But Jonah ran away from the Lord and headed for Tarshish. He went down to Joppa, where he found a ship bound for that port. After paying the fare, he went aboard and sailed for Tarshish to flee from the Lord.
Then the Lord sent a great wind on the sea, and such a violent storm arose that the ship threatened to break up. All the sailors were afraid and each cried out to his own god. And they threw the cargo into the sea to lighten the ship.But Jonah had gone below deck, where he lay down and fell into a deep sleep. The captain went to him and said, “How can you sleep? Get up and call on your god! Maybe he will take notice of us so that we will not perish.”
Then the sailors said to each other, “Come, let us cast lots to find out who is responsible for this calamity.” They cast lots and the lot fell on Jonah.So they asked him, “Tell us, who is responsible for making all this trouble for us? What kind of work do you do? Where do you come from? What is your country? From what people are you?”He answered, “I am a Hebrew and I worship the Lord, the God of heaven, who made the sea and the dry land.”
This terrified them and they asked, “What have you done?” (They knew he was running away from the Lord, because he had already told them so.)The sea was getting rougher and rougher. So they asked him, “What should we do to you to make the sea calm down for us?”“Pick me up and throw me into the sea,” he replied, “and it will become calm. I know that it is my fault that this great storm has come upon you.”
Instead, the men did their best to row back to land. But they could not, for the sea grew even wilder than before. Then they cried out to the Lord, “Please, Lord, do not let us die for taking this man’s life. Do not hold us accountable for killing an innocent man, for you, Lord, have done as you pleased.” Then they took Jonah and threw him overboard, and the raging sea grew calm. At this the men greatly feared the Lord, and they offered a sacrifice to the Lord and made vows to him.
Now the Lord provided a huge fish to swallow Jonah, and Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights.
Now, last week we talked only about the first three verses, and we set the scene. Now, what was Nineveh? Somebody tell me what was Nineveh? Nineveh was the capital of what? Say again?
Church members
Assyrian Empire.
Andy
The Assyrian Empire. That’s right. Now what kind of people were the Assyrians? We talked about this for a long time last week. They were cruel, they were violent. They conquered their people and dominated them with incredible pride and arrogance. They were a wicked, evil people. Now in history after Jonah, it was Assyria that came in and invaded Israel and took 10 out of the 12 tribes. So, God eventually would use this nation to punish Israel. So, there was real animosity between Israel and Assyria. Now let me ask the next question. Why did Jonah disobey God? Why did he run away? Was he a coward?
Church members
No.
Andy
Say again?
Church members
He wanted God to punish them.
Andy
That’s right. He wanted God to punish Assyria. Go ahead.
Church members
He didn’t want to forgive him.
Andy
He didn’t want to forgive him. He did not want to forgive the Assyrians. He wanted to see God’s wrath come down on Assyria, and so he ran away. Now we looked at various options, remember last week. It couldn’t be that Jonah was a coward. It couldn’t be that he didn’t want to go through the difficulties. We went through all that and we came to this conclusion because Jonah told us in chapter 4 why he ran. He ran because he didn’t want God to be gracious and merciful and forgiving to Assyria. Well here we begin the persuasion process on God’s part, and here we kind of begin to wade into the depth of the relationship between God’s will and our will. Now let me tell you, many people have waded into these depths, and you’re never going to find an end or a bottom to the infinity of these thoughts.
God is well able to make us willing to do his will. …Jonah, as stubborn as he is, ultimately cannot but yield to God’s will.
People have tried to figure out how God’s will and our will relates, but let’s put it this way, God is well able to make us willing to do his will. He has various strategies for persuasion, and we see these strategies and Jonah, as stubborn as he is, ultimately cannot but yield to God’s will. God wants Jonah to do something, and Jonah’s going to do it. The only question is how much misery Jonah’s going to go through before he finally obeys God and does what God is commanding him to do.
Well, as I said, we’re going to follow a storm. The storm begins in verses 4 and 5. It continues in verses 5-10. It rages even harder, verses 11-15, and then all of a sudden in verse 16, it suddenly disappears. As we said, the underlying current is what’s going on between God and Jonah. So, let’s look at verses 4 and 5. It says that the Lord sent a great wind in the sea and such a violent storm arose that the ship threatened to break up. Now already we see the action of the Lord and throughout this book we’re going to see the Lord providing this and providing that. In this case, the first thing he does is he provides a great wind.
Now I think of another time when the Lord provided a great wind. I don’t know if you remember this. It was during the time of the Exodus and that was when Charlton Heston, no, Moses stood over the sea, remember? And there was a wind that blew all night. And what happened at the end of that blowing of the wind? There was a parting in the Red Sea, you remember? And the Israelites went across. So, God controls the wind. He controls everything. That’s the whole point of this book. But here he sends a wind to create a storm.
And by the way, God does all of these things for one purpose, for the glory of his name. He really does. He does it for the matchless glory of his own name. Never underestimate God’s zeal for his name. God is very zealous for the glory and the majesty of his name. And everything that we do, we should do with the idea that we are doing it to magnify and glorify the name of the Lord because that’s his purpose. And as we fit into God’s purpose, God will bless us. As we resist, he won’t.
Psalm 23. “He leads me in paths of righteousness.” Why? For his namesake, for the sake of his reputation. Well, when God did that through Moses and sent that wind, he was creating quite a name for himself, wasn’t he? And the glory of the Lord and the power of the Lord was preached in that region. I think that’s why later in this chapter 1 the sailors were so terrified when they found out that Jonah was a Hebrew. And that he was resisting and rebelling against God, Yahweh or Jehovah, the God of the Israelites. God had a reputation, and these people were terrified of that reputation. So, God sends this wind, and this is the first indication of God’s commitment to have Jonah do this work. Jonah’s not going to get off so easily. He’s going to do this job. God has specially prepared Jonah.
And I look at life in a lot of cases like the tumblers in a lock. I don’t know if you’ve ever opened up or looked inside a lock. I’m a mechanical engineer, so I’m interested in these kinds of things. But locks work, at least these rotation kind of locks, by having certain things click into place as you turn the dial. Once all those things have clicked into place, the lock opens. Well, this is the way God frequently works in our lives. He brings us through circumstances, through difficulties and trials, and all of it is making an effect on our character and is preparing us for something. God has been working on Jonah all these many years, getting him ready for this mission, getting him prepared. He’s a courageous man as we’ll see in this book. He’s a faithful preacher, and he’s obedient to God for the most part. Jonah is God’s man, and all of those circumstances have prepared him for this work. And God’s not going to give up on that. But Jonah has some more preparation to go through.
The second thing we see is God’s sovereignty over the sea. God is not just a local God. Remember we talked last time about the fact that Jonah fled to Tarshish. In that way he suffered a little lapse in his theology, thinking that maybe he was running away from God’s jurisdiction. See, this is God’s terrain here, this area, and if we can just go far enough away, we’ll get outside from under God’s sovereign rule. Not so. And God is going to show this. He’s sovereign over the sea. He’s not just a local God, he is not just the God of the Hebrews. And by the way, isn’t that the whole point here? God’s not just the God of the Hebrews, he’s the God of the Gentiles too, and he wants to show his sovereignty over the nation of Assyria by causing them to repent, by bringing them to repentance.
Isn’t that the point? And so, he’s going to show Jonah just how sovereign he is. Jonah really should have known better. This is really a small thing for the God that we talked about last Wednesday who created those galaxies, hundred billion galaxies with a hundred billion stars each. For him to cause a wind to blow on the Mediterranean Sea is really a minor accomplishment. For us, we can’t even comprehend how God could do that, but for God it’s nothing. And so, he creates this wind. Now, the sailors began to be terrified. They were afraid and they cried out each to his own god. How pathetic these pagans crying out to their own local deities. And this is kind of the way that these pagan religions work. They believed that there were various gods that were given kind of jurisdiction, the way the federal government works. You go to this desk or this bureau for these various things. And if you’re having a problem with agriculture, you go to the god that handles that or the sub-god who handles agriculture for this particular nation and you offer a sacrifice, et cetera.
So whenever something like this would happen, they’d have to try to figure out which god it was that was offended and then offer a sacrifice to that god. So, in this case, they’re all calling out to their own god, and the terror is kicking into a survival instinct at this point. And by the way, I think it’s impossible in a circumstance like this to be an atheist. See, atheism is a kind of an intellectual training that you get in universities. We’re not naturally atheistic. We’re naturally very spiritual. We’re not naturally believing in God, but we’re naturally very spiritual. And at these moments, that rises to the surface. So, they’re crying out to their own god, each calling on their own god.
And then we see kind of the physical side of their labor. They begin to throw the cargo over the sea to lighten the ship. They’re thinking that maybe this will save them, that somehow, they’re going to survive if they do this hard labor and try to lighten the ship. Maybe the ship will ride up a little higher. Well, what was Jonah doing during all this time? He was what? Sleeping. Why? Why was he sleeping? Pardon me?
Church members
Not paying attention.
Andy
He’s not paying attention. There’s another picture of someone sleeping in the middle of a storm. Who is that?
Church members
Jesus.
Andy
Jesus. Very different reason though, I think. See, Jesus’ conscience was clear, and he knew that God was sovereign over all things. See, Jonah I think, probably was exhausted by all of the spiritual struggle he was going through. I mean this is a kind of a condensed situation here, but probably the call came to Jonah, and he began to anguish and pray and try to start to work things through until he finally ejected in disobedience. And I think at this point when you’re going through this kind of rebellion, it’s going to have a physical effect on you. And so, Jonah was probably exhausted physically because of the effect it was having on him spiritually. There’s a good verse for this in Luke 22:45. It says, “When Jesus,” this is in Gethsemane, “When Jesus arose from prayer and went back to his disciples, he found them asleep, exhausted as they were from sorrow.”
See, when you’re having some kind of an intense psychological or spiritual situation, it has a physical effect on you, and you can get very tired and drained. And so, I think we see that in Jonah. So, he is down there in a deep sleep. Actually, the Hebrew gives this indication that he’s sound asleep and almost nothing can wake him. I think that’s a measure of what he’s been going through spiritually. Now at this particular moment, if you look at what’s gone on in his life, Jonah is running away from his people, running away from his home, running away from his God and from his career, if you could call it that, as a prophet. He’s running away from everything he loves because of the hatred that’s in his heart, the hatred for the Assyrian Empire. And the fact that he just doesn’t want God to do what God wants to do.
In verses 6-10, we see the storm continuing and we start with the captain. In verse 6, the captain goes down and wakes him and says, “How can you sleep?” The captain’s shocked. Who could sleep in the midst of a situation like this? “So how can you sleep?” he says. “Get up and call on your God.” And then here’s one of my favorite words, maybe. Don’t you love that? “Maybe he will take notice, and we will not perish.” See, there’s a whole uncertainty here in these kinds of pagan syncretist religions. We don’t really know what God, your God will do, but maybe if you offer just the right sacrifice, God will answer. Maybe he will take notice, and we won’t perish. Most Palestinians in that area had three gods. They had personal gods for personal issues. They had family gods, and they would have little idols. And then there were national gods, and they would try to do honor to all of them.
we have a God who never sleeps. You don’t have to yell to get God’s ear.
Well, maybe Jonah’s God could help. Maybe he could take notice. Sometimes the gods didn’t pay attention. You had to get their attention. Do you remember that story of Elijah and the prophets of Baal in which Elijah is taunting the prophets saying, maybe you should scream louder. You haven’t gotten his attention yet. Maybe he’s off occupied doing something else, you see. But we have a God who never sleeps. You don’t have to yell to get God’s ear. He knew all of this would happen before it happened to you. In fact, he brought it on you. God is sovereign over all things. You don’t have to scream to get his attention. And God is king of the universe. But they’re saying, well, maybe you can call on your God, and maybe if he’s not too busy, he’ll take notice. But it’s interesting to me, I think a little ironic that here’s this pagan telling Jonah to do exactly what he should have been doing anyway, which is going to God and crying for mercy. Really throughout the story, it’s the pagans who look much better than Jonah. They really do.
Well, then comes the inquisition. And this is a fascinating verse. Verse 7, “The sailors said to each other, ‘Come, let us cast lots to find out who is responsible for this calamity.’ They cast lots and the lot fell on Jonah.” Now I’m going to ask you a question. What is luck? How would you define luck? Jenny, what’s luck?
Church members
Luck is good luck when they do a good thing.
Andy
Good luck when you want something good to happen. Okay, what is luck? Give me a theological definition of luck.
Church members
There is no such thing.
Andy
Oh, now you’re getting ahead of me here. That’s true. How would most people define luck? What is it? What is this thing that we talk about? It’s a what?
Church members
Things happen to fall in place.
Andy
Things happen to fall into place. Okay, all right.
Church members
Its my Irish law. There’s this determined condition this life that attract good things to me.
Andy
Okay, so good things just happen. You ought to think about this. I mean, think about luck. What is luck? Is it some kind of force running through the universe that no one has any control over at all unless you have a rabbit’s foot, or you feel lucky, and you’re on a hot streak or whatever? I think it’s a very interesting phenomenon. Yet most people, I think at least make some allowance for luck, some allowance for the idea that there’s something in this universe that’s just kind of not controlled by anything or anybody. And see the rolling of a dice would be a good example, right? Roll the dice out. Nothing controls it. Gravity, laws of physics, what angle they were in when your hand, but you don’t pay attention to that it, so no one really knows. You roll it out, and out it comes, right?
Well, how is it then that the lots came up with Jonah? Do you know how it worked? There was a light color and a dark color on both sides of the paddle. If they both came up light, it meant yes. If they came up opposite, that meant they should do it again. If they both came up dark, it meant no. That’s how they worked. So, they had to work through each sailor, captain, whatever, to try to find out whose fault it was. And it just so happened to land on Jonah. How did that work? How does that luck thing work?
Yeah, it’s in Proverbs. “The lot is cast into the lap, but it’s every decision is from the Lord” (Proverbs 16:33). Every decision of the dice when they roll out is from the Lord. Is God really interested in how dice come up? Well, apparently, he is. That’s what Book of Proverbs says, the lot is cast into the lap, but it’s every decision is from the Lord. Well, in this case, it’s very obvious that God ordained that the lots come up on Jonah because it was Jonah’s fault. Well, by the way about this whole thing, I talked to people I was working with about the state lottery. I’m not going to ask if any of you play the state lottery. But see there’s two parts of me that could answer. One is the cold rationalist scientist side in which applied mathematics tells me that you have one in a hundred billion chance of winning that thing or whatever it is.
So, if you take dice and paint them black and one of them red and put them in a building this big, it will go up over the ceiling. and there’s that kind of thing. That kind of reasoning tells you you’ll never win. But anyway, that’s the cold. Then there’s the other side of me, the spiritual side that says, all you need to do is buy one ticket. If God wants you to win that lottery, you’re going to win it.
But actually, I never bought a ticket. I got a free one once and to my shame, I played it and didn’t win. So, it was not God’s will for me to win. Actually, the other day I was at Rooms to Go and Christi made me fill out this thing so we would maybe win $250 worth of free furniture at Rooms to Go. But anyway, we’ll find out if the Lord wills for me to win that one, probably not. Anyway, I don’t know what I’d buy at Rooms to Go for $250. But anyway…
Church members
A small room.
Andy
A small room, right, very small. Closets to Go. So anyway, they cast lots, and the lot fell on Jonah. Well, the pagans I think at this point, they do see that there’s a spiritual nature to everything. There’s a reason for the storm. I think we tend to be a little scientific sometimes. We don’t understand the spiritual nature of the world that we live in. But it says in the Book of Hebrews, “By faith we understand that the universe was formed at God’s command so that what is seen was made out of what is invisible” (Hebrews 11:3). In other words, the invisible spiritual world came first, and it is more real, if you could say it that way, than the physical one. Because this physical world, anything you can see with your eyes, hear with your ears, touch or taste, sense in any way, will someday be destroyed. That’s biblical teaching. It’s temporary, all of it. But the spiritual world is eternal, and it’s more real.
And these pagans, they understood that there was something spiritual behind this storm. So, then they begin to ask questions. A lot fell on Jonah, and they ask questions. “Tell us who is responsible for making all this trouble for us? What do you do? Where do you come from? What is your country? From what people are you?” So, there’s this kind of rapid-fire questioning going on, but it’s interesting that they say you’re making trouble for us. Never think by the way that you sin on your own. We’re a body of Christ together, and the sins that we commit affect other people. We really do. Our sins affect in a ripple kind of way outward from our lives, many, many people and they continue to. We’re a community and so we affect one another. Even people outside of our community are affected by our sin. And so, Jonah’s sin is putting these sailors’ lives in peril. And they’ve already lost material possessions because of Jonah’s rebellion.
We don’t sin alone. We don’t sin in a vacuum. Everything we do affects other people.
They’ve thrown their cargo overboard. It’s sinking to the bottom of the sea because of Jonah. Some men invested in that ship, and they bought cargo and they’re going to trade and they’re hoping for some return. They’re going to get nothing for their money because of Jonah’s rebellion. We don’t sin alone. We don’t sin in a vacuum. Everything we do affects other people. So, they want to know who it is that’s making all this trouble for us. And they want to know why the lot fell on him. So, Jonah confesses. In verse 9 and 10 he says, “I’m a Hebrew and I worship the Lord,” that’s the word Yahweh, “the God of heaven who made the sea and the land. This terrified them.” Now, I’ve already alluded to why this terrified them, but they were afraid of Yahweh. They were afraid of this name, the God of the Hebrews.
They had heard. God had a reputation. He has a reputation now. I think it’s a good thing that God has this reputation. It’s really our job to spread his reputation throughout this community. God’s honor and his name and his glory should be spread by our labors, by our work. And that really is a missionary work all over the world. But they had heard of God, and they knew who he was, or at least they knew some of him. And it’s interesting, he says, I’m a Hebrew, and he knows that all of these things are coming because of him, his guilty conscience coming to the surface. I talked to you before about conscience, that memory of past doings, good or bad, and he had a guilty conscience at this particular moment.
I think about those pathetic brothers of Joseph who did that terrible thing to Joseph. And then years later, without any reason to suspect that Joseph was standing right in front of them, got into some trouble in Egypt. And what was the first thing they thought about? What they did to their brother so many years before that. See a guilty conscience plagues you until it’s finally relieved by forgiveness. And so, Jonah has a guilty conscience, and immediately he knows it’s his fault. Well, the sailors’ reaction shows God’s reputation. He is the King of the universe. Perhaps they’d heard of the Exodus. You know this scripture, God says to Pharaoh, “I raised you up for this very purpose that I might display my power in you,” and what? “That my name might be proclaimed in all the earth” (Romans 9:17). Well, they had heard of God’s reputation.
Now, in verses 11-13, the storm worsens, and we get the sailors’ desperate question in verse 11. “The sea was getting rougher and rougher so they asked him, ‘What should we do to you to make the sea calm down for us?'” It’s kind of an odd question really. There’s a sense that if they do something to Jonah, this angry God will be appeased and, in his appeasement, then their lives will be saved. Now, it’s interesting that they don’t want to kill him. So, I’m not sure what they had in mind. If they’re not going to kill him, I really don’t have any idea. But they know that there needs to be some atonement, or we could say propitiation, made for the sin. But this is not a wrong idea. We think of this in terms of pagan religions, don’t we? Of an angry God who needs to be appeased through sacrifice for sin.
Do you know that your salvation is based on that concept? It really is. Look in Romans 3:25, God gave Jesus Christ as what we call a sacrifice of atonement. I won’t tell you what the Greek word is, but the Greek word is definitely connected to these Greek religions of a sacrifice which would turn away the wrath of God. And they were thinking that Jonah would in some way be a sacrifice to turn away the wrath of God.
Well, Jonah makes a shocking reply. “Pick me up and throw me into the sea,” he replied. Is that what you would’ve said in that circumstance? Pick me up and throw me into the sea. I would’ve gotten on my knees and ask God’s forgiveness and asked the sailors to turn the boat around, and I’ll do it. But instead, Jonah is stubborn. He would rather die than do this work. So, he thinks he’s going to go one better. Now we see the boxing match with God continue. Okay, God, fine. You followed me out this far and you’re creating a storm. Well, I’m just going to die. That’s it. I’m going to take my own life. I have control over my own life. I can lay down my life anytime I choose. No, you can’t. You’re not sovereign over your life. Only Jesus Christ in all of history has been sovereign over his own life and death.
I have power over my life, he said, I can lay it down as I choose, and I can pick it back up as I choose (John 10:18). This authority I receive from my Father. That’s what Jesus taught. Well, Jonah said, I’m going to commit suicide. Throw me overboard and I’ll die, and I don’t have to go to Assyria. And God said, no, that’s not true because I’ve got another level, another level of my determination to have you do this Jonah. You got a fish. Well, getting ahead of ourselves here. Pick me up and throw me in the sea and it will become calm. Rather than submit and obey God, Jonah would rather die. Instead, he should have taken the captain’s suggestion to call on his God. And I think he’s really at this point, very much unlike the apostle Paul. And the apostle Paul said in Romans 9:3, he said, “I could wish that I myself were cursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of my people Israel.” He said, I would like to sacrifice myself spiritually so that Israel could have eternal life.
He’d rather sacrifice himself physically so that Assyria would not believe and would not repent. So, he is the dead opposite of the apostle Paul. Well, the sailors don’t want to kill him. Instead, they do their best to row back to land, but they couldn’t. Is this any surprise? The sea grew even wilder than before. How did that happen? Was it luck? Did the wind just happen to start blowing stronger at that particular moment? No. The Sovereign Lord said, no, we’re not going to do that. I have something, something for Jonah to do, and I have something that I’m going to do in his life. And so, this rowing effort is just not going to do it. And this gives me a picture sometimes of church work. It doesn’t matter how hard you row, if God is fighting against you and he says, I don’t want this thing done, it’s not going to happen.
I don’t want us rowing harder and harder and harder against the will of God. I’d like to see us instead flowing with God, understanding his will, being able to test and approve what God’s will is, his good, pleasing and perfect will through spiritual maturity, through understanding scriptures, through prayer, through the Holy Spirit. But you can fight against God and does not matter how much effort you put in, the church will never grow and will never be what God wants it to be. So, effort doesn’t mean anything if you’re fighting against God.
In verses 14-16, we see the miraculous end of the storm. “They cry out to the Lord, ‘O Lord, please do not let us die for taking this man’s life. Do not hold us accountable for killing an innocent man, for you, O Lord, have done as you please.'” So now they’re praying to Yahweh the God of Israel. They’re praying directly to him. “Then they took Jonah and threw him overboard, and the raging sea grew calm.” Another accident, another happenstance? No. Another example of God’s providence, how he rules over everything. Did you ever wonder how when Jesus went out fishing with his disciples, and they’d been working all night and caught no fish?
Do you ever wonder how it is they caught no fish? God was keeping them out of the nets. Swim this way little fishy, swim that way. Don’t go in there. All right. Is it because God didn’t want them to eat the fish? No. He wanted them all to come in at a particular time. So, he sovereignly moved those fish away, kept them away from those nets all night long. Did not matter how hard they worked; they were going to catch zero fish that night. And why? Because God wanted to show his glory in another way. When Jesus got in the boat and they came out, the nets were so full, they were ready to break. So that they would know it was Jesus Christ who brought it about, not their own efforts and their own fishing skill. So, God controls the fish of the sea. In that case, he had the fish swim away from the nets and then at the right time, swim into the nets. In the same way here, the storm suddenly stops at just the right time.
Now, think of it this way. Suppose that storm had stopped 12 hours later. Would it have been any less an act of the Lord? No. But God wanted to do something for effect at that moment. He was trying to create an effect. And the effect was fear. Just like the disciples when Jesus stood up and said to the wind and the waves, “Peace, be still.” And at that moment, the wind and the waves were completely quiet. God was doing something for effect at that moment. And the effect was the same in both cases. Fear. Fear of the Lord. Now it’s amazing because just like the disciples, these pagan sailors were afraid, weren’t they? They were afraid they were going to drown. Now they’re afraid of something else. They’re afraid of God. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. That’s the beginning of conversion when you have that fear of God, the presence of God, that’s a good thing.
And so, they have that tremendous fear, and so they offer a sacrifice to the Lord, and they make vows to him. I don’t really know if they were genuinely converted at that moment. Who knows? Maybe they’re in heaven waiting for us to ask when we get up there and find out what happened in their lives after that. Who knows? Maybe they went back to their pagan countries as missionaries for Yahweh, the God of Israel. Don’t really know. But at that moment, they feared the Lord, and they offered sacrifices. The sailors did not want to kill Jonah, but even more, they did not want to anger Yahweh. They saw no way out. God had boxed them in, hadn’t he? He had forced them to do what he wanted done.
They already knew at that moment what Jonah was beginning to find out and that’s this. Your arm is too short to box with God. If God wants you to do something, you’re going to do it. It’s just a matter of how much pain and misery you bring yourself through until you accomplish his will. So, this was a tremendous miracle that God had done and had brought these sailors to at least some kind of recognition of the sovereign power of Yahweh.
In conclusion, we look over this chapter, and we see the story, a surface story of a storm. The storm comes up out of nowhere. It rises up and gets more intense. In the midst of it, God controls some dice. On that heaving deck back and forth God just makes sure the dice come up just right. The storm rises to a climax at just the right moment as they’re trying to row. Remember? The whole thing is orchestrated, and then at just the right moment when they pitch Jonah overboard, the storm disappears. That’s the surface story. But we believers know that there’s something going on underneath. God is dealing with Jonah. He’s teaching Jonah something. We’re going to see more about it next chapter. Why don’t we close in prayer?
Father, we thank you for the wonder and the power of your word. The story of a man who lived three millennia before us still teaching us how you deal with people. O Lord, I pray, if there’s any here who need your comforting touch, who need a sense of hope for the immediate circumstances look bleak, I pray that they would turn to you and understand your providence and the fact that you really do rule over the affairs of men. I pray that those people would receive comfort from the fact that their Lord is watching over their lives and is caring for every little thing that happens to them. Father, I pray that this church would have a sense of your guidance and a sense of your leadership. That we would know what you’re calling us to do, and that we would not be rowing against you, but instead following with you and keeping in step with your Spirit. We pray all these things in Jesus’ name. Amen.
Thank you very much, that was beautiful. Turn, if you will, in your Bibles to Jonah 1 as we continue our evening study in the Book of Jonah. And as you do, I’d like to tell you about a conversation that I had with a co-worker recently when I was working as an engineer. We were talking about hope, and I said that it was important for us to have three kinds of hope. We have to have short-range hope, an intermediate hope, and then an eternal hope. Now, we as Christians know all about eternal hope, don’t we? Eternal hope is that certainty that we have that when we die, we’re going to go to heaven, that all our sins are forgiven. It’s something that is intimately connected with our faith in Jesus Christ. And by believing in Christ, we have a sure and certain hope of heaven.
What are those other two hopes? Well, they have to do with what’s going on in your life right now. It has to do with whether you like what you’re going to have for dinner tonight or what’s facing you tomorrow at work. That’s the short-term hope. Maybe things right now in your life aren’t going so well. And then there’s that intermediate hope which has to do with do you like the flow of your life, the direction, where it’s heading. That’s when you start thinking about career, your kids, your life, just the bigger picture.
Now, God in his grace has covered all of these things, but he’s done it in different ways. For example, the eternal hope we know, comes through faith in Jesus Christ. But what about these other two? What doctrine covers intermediate hope and immediate hope? I think it’s the doctrine of providence, the doctrine of providence. Can anyone give me a definition? What is providence? When you think of providence, what do you think about? The Lord will provide, okay. When you say that you believe in providence, what are you talking about, what are you saying that you believe?
That God is orchestrating the events in our lives. Any other thoughts on providence, when you say that the Lord will provide?
Absolutely. God is always awake. He’s vigilant watching over. Anyone else? When you think of the phrase the Lord will provide, what do you think about? This is a… Go ahead.
When you call on the phone it always open and never busy. I love that. That’s great. God is listening. All right.
Here’s a couple of scriptures related to it that Jesus teaching on providence said that not even a sparrow falls to the ground apart from the will of your heavenly Father. Think about that one. And he said, you’re worth more than many sparrows. So, if God is watching over and caring for, shall I say sovereign over the falling of a sparrow, how much more over the events of your lives? Now all of you come here tonight with various struggles, various issues going on. I’d like you to meditate tonight on the doctrine of providence. We’re going to see God’s sovereign control over many things in this chapter, Jonah 1. Here’s another question for you. How many have you ever heard the expression, the hound of Heaven?
The Hound of Heaven. It’s a poem. What does it refer to? The Hound of Heaven. What does that refer to?
Church members
Never gives up.
Andy
Who never gives up?
Church members
God.
Andy
God never gives up. So, God is the Hound of Heaven. A hound is a determined animal, isn’t it? Once he’s on the scent, he pursues, and he is relentless until he gets what he is looking for. And the person who wrote that poem, the Hound of Heaven, refers to God that way. And I think that really, we see that in this chapter. God wants something done in Nineveh, and he’s chosen his man to do it. And the man is Jonah, and God is not going to give up. He’s going to move heaven and earth. He’s going to bring storms; he’s going to bring fish. He’s going to bring everything it takes to get this one man to do the job he wants to do, and I think it really is summed up with a country preacher. Really the story here we’re going to follow is a story of a storm, but we know there’s more going on here than the story of a storm. A storm which comes up, which rises to a certain climax and then miraculously disappears all at once. That’s the big picture.
But what’s going on spiritually? What’s going on beneath the scene? It really is the story of a wrestling match or shall I even say a boxing match between God and Jonah. And this country preacher said, “Let me tell you something. Your arm is too short to box with God.” God is going to get what he wants, and if he wants you to do something, you’re going to do it ultimately. God is sovereign over all things. We’re going to see that today. So, let’s read Jonah 1 and pick up where we left off last week.
The word of the Lord came to Jonah son of Amittai: “Go to the great city of Nineveh and preach against it, because its wickedness has come up before me.”But Jonah ran away from the Lord and headed for Tarshish. He went down to Joppa, where he found a ship bound for that port. After paying the fare, he went aboard and sailed for Tarshish to flee from the Lord.
Then the Lord sent a great wind on the sea, and such a violent storm arose that the ship threatened to break up. All the sailors were afraid and each cried out to his own god. And they threw the cargo into the sea to lighten the ship.But Jonah had gone below deck, where he lay down and fell into a deep sleep. The captain went to him and said, “How can you sleep? Get up and call on your god! Maybe he will take notice of us so that we will not perish.”
Then the sailors said to each other, “Come, let us cast lots to find out who is responsible for this calamity.” They cast lots and the lot fell on Jonah.So they asked him, “Tell us, who is responsible for making all this trouble for us? What kind of work do you do? Where do you come from? What is your country? From what people are you?”He answered, “I am a Hebrew and I worship the Lord, the God of heaven, who made the sea and the dry land.”
This terrified them and they asked, “What have you done?” (They knew he was running away from the Lord, because he had already told them so.)The sea was getting rougher and rougher. So they asked him, “What should we do to you to make the sea calm down for us?”“Pick me up and throw me into the sea,” he replied, “and it will become calm. I know that it is my fault that this great storm has come upon you.”
Instead, the men did their best to row back to land. But they could not, for the sea grew even wilder than before. Then they cried out to the Lord, “Please, Lord, do not let us die for taking this man’s life. Do not hold us accountable for killing an innocent man, for you, Lord, have done as you pleased.” Then they took Jonah and threw him overboard, and the raging sea grew calm. At this the men greatly feared the Lord, and they offered a sacrifice to the Lord and made vows to him.
Now the Lord provided a huge fish to swallow Jonah, and Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights.
Now, last week we talked only about the first three verses, and we set the scene. Now, what was Nineveh? Somebody tell me what was Nineveh? Nineveh was the capital of what? Say again?
Church members
Assyrian Empire.
Andy
The Assyrian Empire. That’s right. Now what kind of people were the Assyrians? We talked about this for a long time last week. They were cruel, they were violent. They conquered their people and dominated them with incredible pride and arrogance. They were a wicked, evil people. Now in history after Jonah, it was Assyria that came in and invaded Israel and took 10 out of the 12 tribes. So, God eventually would use this nation to punish Israel. So, there was real animosity between Israel and Assyria. Now let me ask the next question. Why did Jonah disobey God? Why did he run away? Was he a coward?
Church members
No.
Andy
Say again?
Church members
He wanted God to punish them.
Andy
That’s right. He wanted God to punish Assyria. Go ahead.
Church members
He didn’t want to forgive him.
Andy
He didn’t want to forgive him. He did not want to forgive the Assyrians. He wanted to see God’s wrath come down on Assyria, and so he ran away. Now we looked at various options, remember last week. It couldn’t be that Jonah was a coward. It couldn’t be that he didn’t want to go through the difficulties. We went through all that and we came to this conclusion because Jonah told us in chapter 4 why he ran. He ran because he didn’t want God to be gracious and merciful and forgiving to Assyria. Well here we begin the persuasion process on God’s part, and here we kind of begin to wade into the depth of the relationship between God’s will and our will. Now let me tell you, many people have waded into these depths, and you’re never going to find an end or a bottom to the infinity of these thoughts.
God is well able to make us willing to do his will. …Jonah, as stubborn as he is, ultimately cannot but yield to God’s will.
People have tried to figure out how God’s will and our will relates, but let’s put it this way, God is well able to make us willing to do his will. He has various strategies for persuasion, and we see these strategies and Jonah, as stubborn as he is, ultimately cannot but yield to God’s will. God wants Jonah to do something, and Jonah’s going to do it. The only question is how much misery Jonah’s going to go through before he finally obeys God and does what God is commanding him to do.
Well, as I said, we’re going to follow a storm. The storm begins in verses 4 and 5. It continues in verses 5-10. It rages even harder, verses 11-15, and then all of a sudden in verse 16, it suddenly disappears. As we said, the underlying current is what’s going on between God and Jonah. So, let’s look at verses 4 and 5. It says that the Lord sent a great wind in the sea and such a violent storm arose that the ship threatened to break up. Now already we see the action of the Lord and throughout this book we’re going to see the Lord providing this and providing that. In this case, the first thing he does is he provides a great wind.
Now I think of another time when the Lord provided a great wind. I don’t know if you remember this. It was during the time of the Exodus and that was when Charlton Heston, no, Moses stood over the sea, remember? And there was a wind that blew all night. And what happened at the end of that blowing of the wind? There was a parting in the Red Sea, you remember? And the Israelites went across. So, God controls the wind. He controls everything. That’s the whole point of this book. But here he sends a wind to create a storm.
And by the way, God does all of these things for one purpose, for the glory of his name. He really does. He does it for the matchless glory of his own name. Never underestimate God’s zeal for his name. God is very zealous for the glory and the majesty of his name. And everything that we do, we should do with the idea that we are doing it to magnify and glorify the name of the Lord because that’s his purpose. And as we fit into God’s purpose, God will bless us. As we resist, he won’t.
Psalm 23. “He leads me in paths of righteousness.” Why? For his namesake, for the sake of his reputation. Well, when God did that through Moses and sent that wind, he was creating quite a name for himself, wasn’t he? And the glory of the Lord and the power of the Lord was preached in that region. I think that’s why later in this chapter 1 the sailors were so terrified when they found out that Jonah was a Hebrew. And that he was resisting and rebelling against God, Yahweh or Jehovah, the God of the Israelites. God had a reputation, and these people were terrified of that reputation. So, God sends this wind, and this is the first indication of God’s commitment to have Jonah do this work. Jonah’s not going to get off so easily. He’s going to do this job. God has specially prepared Jonah.
And I look at life in a lot of cases like the tumblers in a lock. I don’t know if you’ve ever opened up or looked inside a lock. I’m a mechanical engineer, so I’m interested in these kinds of things. But locks work, at least these rotation kind of locks, by having certain things click into place as you turn the dial. Once all those things have clicked into place, the lock opens. Well, this is the way God frequently works in our lives. He brings us through circumstances, through difficulties and trials, and all of it is making an effect on our character and is preparing us for something. God has been working on Jonah all these many years, getting him ready for this mission, getting him prepared. He’s a courageous man as we’ll see in this book. He’s a faithful preacher, and he’s obedient to God for the most part. Jonah is God’s man, and all of those circumstances have prepared him for this work. And God’s not going to give up on that. But Jonah has some more preparation to go through.
The second thing we see is God’s sovereignty over the sea. God is not just a local God. Remember we talked last time about the fact that Jonah fled to Tarshish. In that way he suffered a little lapse in his theology, thinking that maybe he was running away from God’s jurisdiction. See, this is God’s terrain here, this area, and if we can just go far enough away, we’ll get outside from under God’s sovereign rule. Not so. And God is going to show this. He’s sovereign over the sea. He’s not just a local God, he is not just the God of the Hebrews. And by the way, isn’t that the whole point here? God’s not just the God of the Hebrews, he’s the God of the Gentiles too, and he wants to show his sovereignty over the nation of Assyria by causing them to repent, by bringing them to repentance.
Isn’t that the point? And so, he’s going to show Jonah just how sovereign he is. Jonah really should have known better. This is really a small thing for the God that we talked about last Wednesday who created those galaxies, hundred billion galaxies with a hundred billion stars each. For him to cause a wind to blow on the Mediterranean Sea is really a minor accomplishment. For us, we can’t even comprehend how God could do that, but for God it’s nothing. And so, he creates this wind. Now, the sailors began to be terrified. They were afraid and they cried out each to his own god. How pathetic these pagans crying out to their own local deities. And this is kind of the way that these pagan religions work. They believed that there were various gods that were given kind of jurisdiction, the way the federal government works. You go to this desk or this bureau for these various things. And if you’re having a problem with agriculture, you go to the god that handles that or the sub-god who handles agriculture for this particular nation and you offer a sacrifice, et cetera.
So whenever something like this would happen, they’d have to try to figure out which god it was that was offended and then offer a sacrifice to that god. So, in this case, they’re all calling out to their own god, and the terror is kicking into a survival instinct at this point. And by the way, I think it’s impossible in a circumstance like this to be an atheist. See, atheism is a kind of an intellectual training that you get in universities. We’re not naturally atheistic. We’re naturally very spiritual. We’re not naturally believing in God, but we’re naturally very spiritual. And at these moments, that rises to the surface. So, they’re crying out to their own god, each calling on their own god.
And then we see kind of the physical side of their labor. They begin to throw the cargo over the sea to lighten the ship. They’re thinking that maybe this will save them, that somehow, they’re going to survive if they do this hard labor and try to lighten the ship. Maybe the ship will ride up a little higher. Well, what was Jonah doing during all this time? He was what? Sleeping. Why? Why was he sleeping? Pardon me?
Church members
Not paying attention.
Andy
He’s not paying attention. There’s another picture of someone sleeping in the middle of a storm. Who is that?
Church members
Jesus.
Andy
Jesus. Very different reason though, I think. See, Jesus’ conscience was clear, and he knew that God was sovereign over all things. See, Jonah I think, probably was exhausted by all of the spiritual struggle he was going through. I mean this is a kind of a condensed situation here, but probably the call came to Jonah, and he began to anguish and pray and try to start to work things through until he finally ejected in disobedience. And I think at this point when you’re going through this kind of rebellion, it’s going to have a physical effect on you. And so, Jonah was probably exhausted physically because of the effect it was having on him spiritually. There’s a good verse for this in Luke 22:45. It says, “When Jesus,” this is in Gethsemane, “When Jesus arose from prayer and went back to his disciples, he found them asleep, exhausted as they were from sorrow.”
See, when you’re having some kind of an intense psychological or spiritual situation, it has a physical effect on you, and you can get very tired and drained. And so, I think we see that in Jonah. So, he is down there in a deep sleep. Actually, the Hebrew gives this indication that he’s sound asleep and almost nothing can wake him. I think that’s a measure of what he’s been going through spiritually. Now at this particular moment, if you look at what’s gone on in his life, Jonah is running away from his people, running away from his home, running away from his God and from his career, if you could call it that, as a prophet. He’s running away from everything he loves because of the hatred that’s in his heart, the hatred for the Assyrian Empire. And the fact that he just doesn’t want God to do what God wants to do.
In verses 6-10, we see the storm continuing and we start with the captain. In verse 6, the captain goes down and wakes him and says, “How can you sleep?” The captain’s shocked. Who could sleep in the midst of a situation like this? “So how can you sleep?” he says. “Get up and call on your God.” And then here’s one of my favorite words, maybe. Don’t you love that? “Maybe he will take notice, and we will not perish.” See, there’s a whole uncertainty here in these kinds of pagan syncretist religions. We don’t really know what God, your God will do, but maybe if you offer just the right sacrifice, God will answer. Maybe he will take notice, and we won’t perish. Most Palestinians in that area had three gods. They had personal gods for personal issues. They had family gods, and they would have little idols. And then there were national gods, and they would try to do honor to all of them.
we have a God who never sleeps. You don’t have to yell to get God’s ear.
Well, maybe Jonah’s God could help. Maybe he could take notice. Sometimes the gods didn’t pay attention. You had to get their attention. Do you remember that story of Elijah and the prophets of Baal in which Elijah is taunting the prophets saying, maybe you should scream louder. You haven’t gotten his attention yet. Maybe he’s off occupied doing something else, you see. But we have a God who never sleeps. You don’t have to yell to get God’s ear. He knew all of this would happen before it happened to you. In fact, he brought it on you. God is sovereign over all things. You don’t have to scream to get his attention. And God is king of the universe. But they’re saying, well, maybe you can call on your God, and maybe if he’s not too busy, he’ll take notice. But it’s interesting to me, I think a little ironic that here’s this pagan telling Jonah to do exactly what he should have been doing anyway, which is going to God and crying for mercy. Really throughout the story, it’s the pagans who look much better than Jonah. They really do.
Well, then comes the inquisition. And this is a fascinating verse. Verse 7, “The sailors said to each other, ‘Come, let us cast lots to find out who is responsible for this calamity.’ They cast lots and the lot fell on Jonah.” Now I’m going to ask you a question. What is luck? How would you define luck? Jenny, what’s luck?
Church members
Luck is good luck when they do a good thing.
Andy
Good luck when you want something good to happen. Okay, what is luck? Give me a theological definition of luck.
Church members
There is no such thing.
Andy
Oh, now you’re getting ahead of me here. That’s true. How would most people define luck? What is it? What is this thing that we talk about? It’s a what?
Church members
Things happen to fall in place.
Andy
Things happen to fall into place. Okay, all right.
Church members
Its my Irish law. There’s this determined condition this life that attract good things to me.
Andy
Okay, so good things just happen. You ought to think about this. I mean, think about luck. What is luck? Is it some kind of force running through the universe that no one has any control over at all unless you have a rabbit’s foot, or you feel lucky, and you’re on a hot streak or whatever? I think it’s a very interesting phenomenon. Yet most people, I think at least make some allowance for luck, some allowance for the idea that there’s something in this universe that’s just kind of not controlled by anything or anybody. And see the rolling of a dice would be a good example, right? Roll the dice out. Nothing controls it. Gravity, laws of physics, what angle they were in when your hand, but you don’t pay attention to that it, so no one really knows. You roll it out, and out it comes, right?
Well, how is it then that the lots came up with Jonah? Do you know how it worked? There was a light color and a dark color on both sides of the paddle. If they both came up light, it meant yes. If they came up opposite, that meant they should do it again. If they both came up dark, it meant no. That’s how they worked. So, they had to work through each sailor, captain, whatever, to try to find out whose fault it was. And it just so happened to land on Jonah. How did that work? How does that luck thing work?
Yeah, it’s in Proverbs. “The lot is cast into the lap, but it’s every decision is from the Lord” (Proverbs 16:33). Every decision of the dice when they roll out is from the Lord. Is God really interested in how dice come up? Well, apparently, he is. That’s what Book of Proverbs says, the lot is cast into the lap, but it’s every decision is from the Lord. Well, in this case, it’s very obvious that God ordained that the lots come up on Jonah because it was Jonah’s fault. Well, by the way about this whole thing, I talked to people I was working with about the state lottery. I’m not going to ask if any of you play the state lottery. But see there’s two parts of me that could answer. One is the cold rationalist scientist side in which applied mathematics tells me that you have one in a hundred billion chance of winning that thing or whatever it is.
So, if you take dice and paint them black and one of them red and put them in a building this big, it will go up over the ceiling. and there’s that kind of thing. That kind of reasoning tells you you’ll never win. But anyway, that’s the cold. Then there’s the other side of me, the spiritual side that says, all you need to do is buy one ticket. If God wants you to win that lottery, you’re going to win it.
But actually, I never bought a ticket. I got a free one once and to my shame, I played it and didn’t win. So, it was not God’s will for me to win. Actually, the other day I was at Rooms to Go and Christi made me fill out this thing so we would maybe win $250 worth of free furniture at Rooms to Go. But anyway, we’ll find out if the Lord wills for me to win that one, probably not. Anyway, I don’t know what I’d buy at Rooms to Go for $250. But anyway…
Church members
A small room.
Andy
A small room, right, very small. Closets to Go. So anyway, they cast lots, and the lot fell on Jonah. Well, the pagans I think at this point, they do see that there’s a spiritual nature to everything. There’s a reason for the storm. I think we tend to be a little scientific sometimes. We don’t understand the spiritual nature of the world that we live in. But it says in the Book of Hebrews, “By faith we understand that the universe was formed at God’s command so that what is seen was made out of what is invisible” (Hebrews 11:3). In other words, the invisible spiritual world came first, and it is more real, if you could say it that way, than the physical one. Because this physical world, anything you can see with your eyes, hear with your ears, touch or taste, sense in any way, will someday be destroyed. That’s biblical teaching. It’s temporary, all of it. But the spiritual world is eternal, and it’s more real.
And these pagans, they understood that there was something spiritual behind this storm. So, then they begin to ask questions. A lot fell on Jonah, and they ask questions. “Tell us who is responsible for making all this trouble for us? What do you do? Where do you come from? What is your country? From what people are you?” So, there’s this kind of rapid-fire questioning going on, but it’s interesting that they say you’re making trouble for us. Never think by the way that you sin on your own. We’re a body of Christ together, and the sins that we commit affect other people. We really do. Our sins affect in a ripple kind of way outward from our lives, many, many people and they continue to. We’re a community and so we affect one another. Even people outside of our community are affected by our sin. And so, Jonah’s sin is putting these sailors’ lives in peril. And they’ve already lost material possessions because of Jonah’s rebellion.
We don’t sin alone. We don’t sin in a vacuum. Everything we do affects other people.
They’ve thrown their cargo overboard. It’s sinking to the bottom of the sea because of Jonah. Some men invested in that ship, and they bought cargo and they’re going to trade and they’re hoping for some return. They’re going to get nothing for their money because of Jonah’s rebellion. We don’t sin alone. We don’t sin in a vacuum. Everything we do affects other people. So, they want to know who it is that’s making all this trouble for us. And they want to know why the lot fell on him. So, Jonah confesses. In verse 9 and 10 he says, “I’m a Hebrew and I worship the Lord,” that’s the word Yahweh, “the God of heaven who made the sea and the land. This terrified them.” Now, I’ve already alluded to why this terrified them, but they were afraid of Yahweh. They were afraid of this name, the God of the Hebrews.
They had heard. God had a reputation. He has a reputation now. I think it’s a good thing that God has this reputation. It’s really our job to spread his reputation throughout this community. God’s honor and his name and his glory should be spread by our labors, by our work. And that really is a missionary work all over the world. But they had heard of God, and they knew who he was, or at least they knew some of him. And it’s interesting, he says, I’m a Hebrew, and he knows that all of these things are coming because of him, his guilty conscience coming to the surface. I talked to you before about conscience, that memory of past doings, good or bad, and he had a guilty conscience at this particular moment.
I think about those pathetic brothers of Joseph who did that terrible thing to Joseph. And then years later, without any reason to suspect that Joseph was standing right in front of them, got into some trouble in Egypt. And what was the first thing they thought about? What they did to their brother so many years before that. See a guilty conscience plagues you until it’s finally relieved by forgiveness. And so, Jonah has a guilty conscience, and immediately he knows it’s his fault. Well, the sailors’ reaction shows God’s reputation. He is the King of the universe. Perhaps they’d heard of the Exodus. You know this scripture, God says to Pharaoh, “I raised you up for this very purpose that I might display my power in you,” and what? “That my name might be proclaimed in all the earth” (Romans 9:17). Well, they had heard of God’s reputation.
Now, in verses 11-13, the storm worsens, and we get the sailors’ desperate question in verse 11. “The sea was getting rougher and rougher so they asked him, ‘What should we do to you to make the sea calm down for us?'” It’s kind of an odd question really. There’s a sense that if they do something to Jonah, this angry God will be appeased and, in his appeasement, then their lives will be saved. Now, it’s interesting that they don’t want to kill him. So, I’m not sure what they had in mind. If they’re not going to kill him, I really don’t have any idea. But they know that there needs to be some atonement, or we could say propitiation, made for the sin. But this is not a wrong idea. We think of this in terms of pagan religions, don’t we? Of an angry God who needs to be appeased through sacrifice for sin.
Do you know that your salvation is based on that concept? It really is. Look in Romans 3:25, God gave Jesus Christ as what we call a sacrifice of atonement. I won’t tell you what the Greek word is, but the Greek word is definitely connected to these Greek religions of a sacrifice which would turn away the wrath of God. And they were thinking that Jonah would in some way be a sacrifice to turn away the wrath of God.
Well, Jonah makes a shocking reply. “Pick me up and throw me into the sea,” he replied. Is that what you would’ve said in that circumstance? Pick me up and throw me into the sea. I would’ve gotten on my knees and ask God’s forgiveness and asked the sailors to turn the boat around, and I’ll do it. But instead, Jonah is stubborn. He would rather die than do this work. So, he thinks he’s going to go one better. Now we see the boxing match with God continue. Okay, God, fine. You followed me out this far and you’re creating a storm. Well, I’m just going to die. That’s it. I’m going to take my own life. I have control over my own life. I can lay down my life anytime I choose. No, you can’t. You’re not sovereign over your life. Only Jesus Christ in all of history has been sovereign over his own life and death.
I have power over my life, he said, I can lay it down as I choose, and I can pick it back up as I choose (John 10:18). This authority I receive from my Father. That’s what Jesus taught. Well, Jonah said, I’m going to commit suicide. Throw me overboard and I’ll die, and I don’t have to go to Assyria. And God said, no, that’s not true because I’ve got another level, another level of my determination to have you do this Jonah. You got a fish. Well, getting ahead of ourselves here. Pick me up and throw me in the sea and it will become calm. Rather than submit and obey God, Jonah would rather die. Instead, he should have taken the captain’s suggestion to call on his God. And I think he’s really at this point, very much unlike the apostle Paul. And the apostle Paul said in Romans 9:3, he said, “I could wish that I myself were cursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of my people Israel.” He said, I would like to sacrifice myself spiritually so that Israel could have eternal life.
He’d rather sacrifice himself physically so that Assyria would not believe and would not repent. So, he is the dead opposite of the apostle Paul. Well, the sailors don’t want to kill him. Instead, they do their best to row back to land, but they couldn’t. Is this any surprise? The sea grew even wilder than before. How did that happen? Was it luck? Did the wind just happen to start blowing stronger at that particular moment? No. The Sovereign Lord said, no, we’re not going to do that. I have something, something for Jonah to do, and I have something that I’m going to do in his life. And so, this rowing effort is just not going to do it. And this gives me a picture sometimes of church work. It doesn’t matter how hard you row, if God is fighting against you and he says, I don’t want this thing done, it’s not going to happen.
I don’t want us rowing harder and harder and harder against the will of God. I’d like to see us instead flowing with God, understanding his will, being able to test and approve what God’s will is, his good, pleasing and perfect will through spiritual maturity, through understanding scriptures, through prayer, through the Holy Spirit. But you can fight against God and does not matter how much effort you put in, the church will never grow and will never be what God wants it to be. So, effort doesn’t mean anything if you’re fighting against God.
In verses 14-16, we see the miraculous end of the storm. “They cry out to the Lord, ‘O Lord, please do not let us die for taking this man’s life. Do not hold us accountable for killing an innocent man, for you, O Lord, have done as you please.'” So now they’re praying to Yahweh the God of Israel. They’re praying directly to him. “Then they took Jonah and threw him overboard, and the raging sea grew calm.” Another accident, another happenstance? No. Another example of God’s providence, how he rules over everything. Did you ever wonder how when Jesus went out fishing with his disciples, and they’d been working all night and caught no fish?
Do you ever wonder how it is they caught no fish? God was keeping them out of the nets. Swim this way little fishy, swim that way. Don’t go in there. All right. Is it because God didn’t want them to eat the fish? No. He wanted them all to come in at a particular time. So, he sovereignly moved those fish away, kept them away from those nets all night long. Did not matter how hard they worked; they were going to catch zero fish that night. And why? Because God wanted to show his glory in another way. When Jesus got in the boat and they came out, the nets were so full, they were ready to break. So that they would know it was Jesus Christ who brought it about, not their own efforts and their own fishing skill. So, God controls the fish of the sea. In that case, he had the fish swim away from the nets and then at the right time, swim into the nets. In the same way here, the storm suddenly stops at just the right time.
Now, think of it this way. Suppose that storm had stopped 12 hours later. Would it have been any less an act of the Lord? No. But God wanted to do something for effect at that moment. He was trying to create an effect. And the effect was fear. Just like the disciples when Jesus stood up and said to the wind and the waves, “Peace, be still.” And at that moment, the wind and the waves were completely quiet. God was doing something for effect at that moment. And the effect was the same in both cases. Fear. Fear of the Lord. Now it’s amazing because just like the disciples, these pagan sailors were afraid, weren’t they? They were afraid they were going to drown. Now they’re afraid of something else. They’re afraid of God. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. That’s the beginning of conversion when you have that fear of God, the presence of God, that’s a good thing.
And so, they have that tremendous fear, and so they offer a sacrifice to the Lord, and they make vows to him. I don’t really know if they were genuinely converted at that moment. Who knows? Maybe they’re in heaven waiting for us to ask when we get up there and find out what happened in their lives after that. Who knows? Maybe they went back to their pagan countries as missionaries for Yahweh, the God of Israel. Don’t really know. But at that moment, they feared the Lord, and they offered sacrifices. The sailors did not want to kill Jonah, but even more, they did not want to anger Yahweh. They saw no way out. God had boxed them in, hadn’t he? He had forced them to do what he wanted done.
They already knew at that moment what Jonah was beginning to find out and that’s this. Your arm is too short to box with God. If God wants you to do something, you’re going to do it. It’s just a matter of how much pain and misery you bring yourself through until you accomplish his will. So, this was a tremendous miracle that God had done and had brought these sailors to at least some kind of recognition of the sovereign power of Yahweh.
In conclusion, we look over this chapter, and we see the story, a surface story of a storm. The storm comes up out of nowhere. It rises up and gets more intense. In the midst of it, God controls some dice. On that heaving deck back and forth God just makes sure the dice come up just right. The storm rises to a climax at just the right moment as they’re trying to row. Remember? The whole thing is orchestrated, and then at just the right moment when they pitch Jonah overboard, the storm disappears. That’s the surface story. But we believers know that there’s something going on underneath. God is dealing with Jonah. He’s teaching Jonah something. We’re going to see more about it next chapter. Why don’t we close in prayer?
Father, we thank you for the wonder and the power of your word. The story of a man who lived three millennia before us still teaching us how you deal with people. O Lord, I pray, if there’s any here who need your comforting touch, who need a sense of hope for the immediate circumstances look bleak, I pray that they would turn to you and understand your providence and the fact that you really do rule over the affairs of men. I pray that those people would receive comfort from the fact that their Lord is watching over their lives and is caring for every little thing that happens to them. Father, I pray that this church would have a sense of your guidance and a sense of your leadership. That we would know what you’re calling us to do, and that we would not be rowing against you, but instead following with you and keeping in step with your Spirit. We pray all these things in Jesus’ name. Amen.
