I want to take you back to one of our most familiar childhood Bible stories, and hopefully observe some new lessons that perhaps we didn’t notice in our elementary Sunday school classes. The story I want to take you to, today, is the story of Jonah. As a child, I made some assumptions about why Jonah ran from God, and perhaps the unkind trial of allowing Jonah to be swallowed by a nasty fish. So, let’s address some of these assumptions in this post, and in the post to follow.
First, we are going to follow Jonah on his fleeing path, and notice God’s plan even in the midst of Jonah’s disobedience. As I started reading, I had to stop and ask a couple questions. Why did God allow Jonah to run? Why didn’t He stop him before he got on the ship? Why didn’t God just give up on Jonah, and ask a more submissive believer to do the task of going to Nineveh? Let’s try to answer these questions.
We come to the point in the story where Jonah is on the ship heading to Tarshish (which is 2500 miles in the opposite direction of where Jonah is supposed to be going), and Jonah is sleeping in the bottom of the ship while the rest of the men on board are frantically calling out to their gods and throwing cargo over the side of the ship in an attempt to save their lives. They find Jonah, wake him up, and plead with him to call out to his God, unaware that his is the one true God. They are desperate and trying to do everything they can to save their lives. When they cast lots and it falls on Jonah, he admits that he was running from the presence of God, and they should through him over to stop the storm.
However, we see that they value Jonah’s life, and also don’t entirely believe that his God is real, because they keep trying to row the ship to avoid this fate, until they have no other hope but to try to do what Jonah said, and through him over. The moment they do this, the sea calmed, and it was in that instant that those men on the ship saw God’s power, feared the one true God, and thy “offered a sacrifice unto THE Lord, and made vows.” (Jonah 1:16) So the first reason God didn’t stop Jonah from running was for the sake of the men on the ship.
They had no knowledge of the one true God, and He wanted to prove that He was God over the false gods that they worshiped at the time, despite Jonah’s poor testimony.
It is always God Who yields the increase of lost souls. (1 Cor. 3:6-7)
In the next couple verses (1:17-2:1) we read, “Now the Lord had prepared a great fish to swallow up Jonah. And Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights. Then Jonah prayed unto the Lord his God out of the fish’s belly,” Notice the past tense in the phrase “the Lord had prepared a great fish to swallow up Jonah.” This shows us that God didn’t create this fish in the moment that Jonah was thrown overboard, though He certainly has the power to simply speak creatures into existence. God wasn’t waiting to see what would happen. I think it’s important to observe that God had prepared this fish over the course of time, knowing in advance that Jonah would rebel, and that He would use it for this future moment in history. Why is that important?
Because it proves once again that God is omniscient.
He knows everything, even before the time that it happens, and He had made a plan in advance to fulfill His will.
Now, was this act of a fish swallowing Jonah a punishment? In Chapter 2, Jonah finally prays to God after being in the fish’s belly for 3 full days. It took Jonah 3 days in a nasty, smelly stomach of a fish to finally humble his stubborn heart and call out to God. In this prayer, Jonah describes how he had been overtaken by the waves, and as he sank, the weeds under the water wrapped around his head and entangled him. Jonah surely would have died had God not prepared that fish to swallow him. I think that this fish was God's grace on Jonah.
Not only did it protect him from drowning, but I think it also served as an uncomfortable holding place along the disobedient path that Jonah had chosen for himself to help Jonah see the error of his ways, and brought him back to a place where he was submissive to do God’s will.
From looking only at the beginning of Jonah’s story, we can learn some very valuable lessons:
1.) God doesn’t need us. While Jonah was in full disobedience and running from God, God was still busy saving the souls of men. This is not an excuse not to do God’s will, and even when we are doing His will, we must remember that it is God who saves souls, and not ourselves. He is the only one capable of doing that.
2.) Sometimes, God has to allow his children to take the path that they insist on taking so that they can see His path was best all along.
3.) God’s uncomfortable “waiting rooms” during times of sin are really His mercy to His children.
4.) God is quick, and ready to forgive those who truly have a repentant heart.
This is a great reminder of God’s power!