Jonah and the Mystery of God’s Mercy
Part 2: Consequences of Sin
This is a summary of my notes for a 6-part Sunday School lesson I recently led. It is an adaptation of my previous posts on Jonah along with some points based on the book, The Prodigal Prophet by Time Keller.
Begin at the Beginning
Welcome back to the life story of Jonah. I know it’s probably been a hectic week for everyone. So, I want to take a minute or so to briefly review last week’s lesson.
Before we move forward to this next passage, let’s remind ourselves where we last left Jonah.
- Jonah received a personal call from God to go to the hated city of Nineveh and preach a message of warning and repentance.
- Jonah decided to do the complete opposite of what God was commanding him.
One point I didn’t bring up last week when speaking on Jonah’s actions being set as opposites is the words he chose to depict his choices.
You can see in 1:1-3 that God called Jonah to “Arise” and he kind of sort of obeyed as he “rose” to flee. From that point forward his journey was on a continual journey downward. This theme will continue through the rest of Chapter 1 and into Chapter 2.
Consequences of Decisions
Prepare yourself… This one is going to strike a bit too close to home for most of us. Or at least it does for me!
What is God’s response to Jonah’s decision?
God responds to Jonah’s decision to run away in a manner designed to grab Jonah’s attention and bring him to a point of conflict where he must truly engage with his sinful heart. God is forcing Jonah to deal with his rebellion by sending a great storm upon the sea. This isn’t just some standard storm at sea that everyone had seen before. This was a “mighty tempest” of a storm that was threatening to break the ship apart and drown all of them.
There are consequences to sin. Jonah’s sin. My sin. Your sin. I remember my experience dealing with a “mighty tempest” from the Lord. It brought me to my knees and forced me to deal with my own sinful heart. It was a storm designed to bring repentance into my life.
What is the sailor’s response to the storm?
Through no apparent fault of their own, the sailors are having to deal with this “mighty storm”. The amazing response of these sailors is that they are fully concerned for the well-being of everyone on board the ship, including Jonah. They are not just worried about their friends, countrymen, or even their own socioeconomic group. They are working together to save the ship and everyone’s lives.
We even see the pagan ship captain confront the prophet. This man of God, who has been commissioned by the Lord, had to be reproved and corrected by an unbeliever for his lack of care and concern. Have you had this experience?
What is Jonah’s response to the storm?
Jonah’s response is that he was fast asleep. Let that simmer in your mind for just a moment. Picture the chaos of a raging storm upon the sea that is causing seasoned sailors to fear for their lives and to toss overboard all of their cargo with the slim hope of simply sparing their lives. Now look below deck and see the holy man of God fast asleep without a care in the world.
Jonah was so blind to the depth of his sin that he was not concerned at all. There was no anxiousness, no guilt, and certainly no shame plaguing him and causing him to lose his appetite or sleep. Quite the opposite in fact. Jonah was content and satisfied with his decision to flee.
Don’t we find ourselves with this same mindset at times? In the midst of one of these storms brought into our lives by the Lord and designed to wake us from our slumber and comfort in sin, we are completely ignorant and indifferent. We may think our sin is of little or no consequence. It’s only a little sin. It’s only a thought. It’s only an irrelevant action that nobody will ever see. Nobody will get hurt… These are all lies from the enemy designed to lure us to sleep. Lies designed to destroy us.
For our discussion time, I want you to take a minute and think back on a storm God brought into your life. A time when you were resting content in your sin and God woke you from your slumber. Don’t worry, I don’t want you to share the sin! I’m just looking for – What you learned about yourself and/or God through this time in the storm.
Notice the lengths to which God is going to pursue Jonah’s heart.
- He has given Jonah a tremendous opportunity to preach a message of warning and repentance to the most powerful nation on earth.
- He has brought about a great storm that’s threatening to destroy the ship Jonah means as an escape.
- The very thing Jonah has placed his trust is on the verge of being destroyed.
Still… Jonah’s heart is unmoved and unengaged. It’s not until these pagan sailors seek guidance by casting lots that Jonah begins to respond. Now, we will start to see the beginning steps and the slow work of a heart change.
Heart Change
Identity Questions/Answers Reveal Shallowness
These verses paint a picture of Jonah being woken from his slumber and compelled to participate in the necessary process of appealing to God. Or in the eyes of the sailors, to any god that might have a remote possibility of helping them. When the lot fell on Jonah and God had clearly pointed the finger at him, Jonah finally answered and began to engage with the “others” that are around him. The sailors ask him four simple questions focused on determining his identity. They want him to share about his Purpose, Place, and People. They are essentially asking, “Who are you and Whose are you?”
Jonah’s answer is striking in that it reveals the spiritual shallowness of his identity. Jonah answers, “I am a Hebrew, and I fear the LORD.” Jonah identifies himself first ethnically, then religiously. I don’t want to stretch this too far, but it is important to see that Jonah did not prioritize his relationship with God in his answer. There is a sense in which he is saying, “I am a Hebrew. And as a good Hebrew, I fear the Lord, because that’s what we are taught to do.” His self-identity was preventing him from truly seeing his need for God’s mercy and grace. Jonah is spiritually blind.
Initial State of His Heart
Verse 10 says, “For the men knew that he was fleeing from the presence of the Lord because he had told them so.” In this verse, we see that Jonah was so at ease and comfortable with his sin that he was open and forthright about it to everyone. He wasn’t trying to hide what he was doing. Rather he was acting as though there was nothing wrong. Maybe even as though he was in the right.
Current State of His Heart
Verse 9 says, “I fear the Lord, the God of heaven, who made the sea and the dry land.” We are beginning to see the stirrings of awareness awakening in Jonah. Jonah is finally acknowledging that he can in no way flee the presence of the Lord. God is the Lord of both the sea and the land. There is no place on earth where the Lord is not LORD. There is nowhere Jonah can flee to escape the presence of the Lord. The storm is beginning to work its purpose and rouse the slumbering prophet.
Think about your identity and your heart for a minute. How have you seen the importance of properly understanding the question, “Who are you and whose are you” and its effect on your heart?
Bringing Peace
Jonah Taking Responsibility
As the stirring of awareness softens Jonah’s heart, he begins to see the sailors as people in need. I don’t think we can say that Jonah has developed a deep concern for them yet, but there is a recognition in his words that he needs to take responsibility for the danger he has brought. Jonah doesn’t necessarily take responsibility because he’s looking at God, but he is at least looking at the sailors. This is significant in that this is often the first step we all take when we begin to come to our senses. We have to start thinking about somebody, anybody, other than ourselves.
Pattern of Substitution
There are many different references to the life and ministry of Jesus throughout the Book of Jonah. One significant forward-looking action is Jonah being offered up as a substitute for the sailors on the boat. This substitutionary sacrifice is pointing to the death of Christ on the cross. There are two points of comparison that I find interesting in this.
First, The sailors don’t take Jonah at his word that hurling him into the sea is the answer. They sought to rectify the situation themselves by rowing even harder to reach dry ground. The result was that the storm grew worse.
Do you ever find yourself doing that? “I don’t like the answer, so I’ll keep trying it my way.”
Second, when the sailors finally hurl Jonah into the sea, it immediately stops raging and there is peace and calm. So much so, that this frightened them more than anything. Notice that the sailors only made their vows after God had delivered the peace. We regularly make a vow to God during the trouble to try and convince God to bring peace. These sailors were so overwhelmed by the mercy and compassion of God that they made their vows when the danger had already passed.
Jonah is Not Jesus
This probably goes without saying, but Jonah is not Jesus. Look back over the whole of Chapter 1… The only people who pray to the Lord are the sailors. Jonah has not yet prayed to the Lord at any point in this narrative. Not before he decided to run away. Not while he was down in the boat sleeping. And not even when he made the decision to be hurled into the sea. He was still making choices based on his own wisdom and understanding.
Which leads us to the question, “Why?” Why does Jonah ask them to hurl him into the sea? Is it purely out of protection for the men? Possibly. I wonder though if Jonah has just given up at this point. He knows he cannot flee the presence of the Lord who created the dry ground and the sea. So maybe he wants to be hurled into the sea because he would rather die than go to Nineveh and offer a message of warning from a merciful and compassionate God.
Take a moment and think about how you see this pattern of Jonah playing out in your life. Do you remember moments when prayer was the last thing on your mind? When your first thought and action was to “fix it yourself.”