Jonah 2.
# 2. ‘Preacher on the Run.’
Read- Jonah 1:3 – 12.
‘One of the worst train disasters in history occurred in the El Toro Tunnel in Leon, Spain, on January 3, 1944. Over five hundred people died.
The train was on of those long passenger trains with an engine on both ends. On this particular day, when the train went into the El Toro Tunnel, the engine on the front end stalled. When the engine stopped, the engineer on the back engine started up his engine to back the train out of the tunnel. At the same time, however, the front engineer managed to get the front engine started again and attempted to continue the journey. Neither engineer had any way of communicating with the other. Both engineers thought they simply needed more power. They continued to pull in both directions for several minutes. Hundreds of passengers on the train in the tunnel died of carbon monoxide poisoning because the train could not make up its mind which way to go.’
(From Hot Illustrations.)
Jonah the Prophet was like that engineer at the back of the train trying to take it in the opposite direction when he fled from the presence of God. Let’s take up the story where we left off the last time.
We have been looking at the story of Jonah the Prophet under the title ‘Forty Days to save a City.’ Forty days was the amount of time Jonah was give to preach the message to Nineveh, the capital city of Assyria – Jonah 3:4.
In our study last week we saw Jonah as a ‘Man of Destiny,’ that is, a man whom God specially selected for a specific purpose in life; a man chosen for a mission to bring the message of God’s judgment to the city of Nineveh.
Like Jonah, we too have been called to a special purpose, a destiny. We are to bring the message of Jesus Christ to the doomed people of this world. But we too, like Jonah, find it difficult to break away from the safety and security of our comfortable congregations and move into the darkness and wickedness of the world around us and share the message of God’s love and mercy to them. Jonah has many applications to us. Today we are going to look at the ongoing story and what it says to us.
Chapter 1:3 begins with the statement, ‘But Jonah ran from the presence of the Lord.’
I think we can assume that Jonah was a man who was normally obedient to the Lord, but in this case he wasn’t. Somewhere in the experience of Jonah there was a place where Jonah would sense the presence of God and receive messages from God for his own life and for the people of Israel. That was the way in which Old Testament prophets functioned. Moses, for example, would feel God’s presence and hear Him speak whenever he entered the Tabernacle. Jonah had his place too.
On this particular occasion Jonah went to ‘his place’ and God spoke clearly and powerfully to Jonah, “Go to the great city of Nineveh and preach against it, because its great wickedness has come before me.” And Jonah, instead of doing what God had commanded, ran from the presence of the Lord. Jonah is guilty of two sins here.
a. He refused to obey the word of the Lord, and
b. He rejected the presence of the Lord.
Unlike us today, Jonah did not have the Bible in his hand. There was no Bible to read except for some protected manuscripts of some Old Testament books kept in the Temple (when there was a Temple).
Where do we hear God today?
Technology has brought us the complete Bible in many ways today. For the last several hundred years since the Protestant Reformation the Bible has been the World’s Best Seller and continues to be. And if you and I want to truly hear the Word of God all we have to do is grab the book out of the library or bring it up on our computers, Ipods, Ipads, Iphones, etc., and read it. We can have it read to us if we wish.
But then, there is this other thing – ‘the presence of God.’
Where do we Feel God today?
Some of us feel it in church and that’s why we love going every Sunday. Some of us have our ‘secret places’ where we go to pray. Others of us like to move away from the busy areas of life and find solitude, and so on. But when we profess faith in Jesus Christ we all have our places where we feel and sense the presence of God.
But when we deliberately disobey God that is exactly the place we don’t want to be. We don’t want to hear His word and we don’t want to feel His presence. And so, like Jonah we run away from those places. We run away from anywhere where we are brought face to face with the truth that God wants us to hear and where there is prayer and a sense of God’s presence with us. Are you doing that today?
So then, the other thing we are told here is that ‘Jonah headed for Tarshish.’ He went down to the port of Joppa, and guess what? There just happens to be a ship going to Tarshish. Now, we do know where Joppa is for the town still exists today. We know nothing about Tarshish as it is not to be found on any ancient maps.
What I want us to see, however, is that a certain spiritual disintegration begins to take place in Jonah’s life once he disobeyed God and ran from His presence. It is the same kind of spiritual disintegration that will take place in your life and mine if we allow the same thing to happen to us. Follow me as we examine what happens at this point in Jonah’s life.
1. Jonah is being guided by Circumstances rather than by the Word Of God.
Once Jonah made up his mind to disobey God he found exactly what he wanted. He wanted a ship and he found a ship. That is the way life works. Whenever we are running away from God we begin to lose our spiritual perspective and all of a sudden things seem to fit into our lives which we once considered quite unacceptable and even downright horrible.
“But,” someone will ask, “doesn’t God lead us by circumstances?” And the answer is that He does, but there is a principle involved and it is this: God will not guide us by circumstances when we refuse to be guided by His word. When God’s will is clearly revealed in His written word and we consciously disobey it, we cannot expect the circumstances to come together for us. And the circumstances today that may seem favourable to you may be the very thing that is blocking the full blessing of God upon your life if you are disobeying His word and running from the place of prayer.
The next thing you will notice in the story here is that:
2. Jonah became Powerless in a time of Crisis – v. 4 – 5.
A storm had risen at sea and the ship was about to be destroyed. On that ship was a Prophet of God, but he had no word of hope for the captain or the crew. The truth is he didn’t even notice that there was a storm. He was fast asleep below the deck.
That is precisely what happens to us when we run away from God. We become powerless. Have you ever found yourself saying, “Well, I guess there isn’t really anything I can do here”? Listen, if you are a Christian there is always something you can do – read Romans 15:14. When we are hearing the word of God and sensing the presence of God, the competency is not of us; it’s of the Lord. And His word in us creates faith to do things we couldn’t do otherwise. So, let’s not throw in the towel and say there is nothing we can do. Those are the words of a defeated Christian who has allowed disobedience to dictate the terms of his or her life.
God will not give us His Power where we refuse His Presence.
Here is the next thing:
3. Jonah became Ashamed of who he was – v. 8 – 9.
Jonah had been discovered. The captain of the ship was a pagan and when all this storm and turmoil began he suspected that it had something to do with the stranger on the ship. So he sought out Jonah and began to question him:
• Who is responsible?
• What do you do?
• Where are you from?
• What is your country?
• Who are your people?
Five questions, and in one simple sentence Jonah answered four of the five questions – v.9. But did you notice which question was left unanswered? ‘What do you do?’ Jonah could no longer say, “I am a Prophet of Jehovah the one true and living God.” His witnessed had been silenced.
Here is the principle for you and me:
God will silence our Witness when we Shut-out His Will for us.
Conscious disobedience to God leads inevitably to a loss of ability to share one’s faith in Jesus Christ effectively with others around us.
And finally, please note that:
4. Jonah despaired of Future Service for God – v. 11 – 12.
Here is the sequence of principles so far in this chapter in Jonah’s life.
• Disobedience made Jonah take his eyes off the Lord.
• Following circumstances left him powerless in a time of crisis.
• When questioned he became ashamed of his calling.
• And now, he despairs at the thought of any future ministry.
Jonah was now sure that God had no future work for him and so he was ready to die.
I really believe you would have had to experience an overwhelming sense of God’s call and anointing and power in your life to understand what Jonah was going through. For him prophesying was not a profession in the way much preaching has become a profession today. For him, as it was for the prophets of Israel, prophesying was a mighty inner constraining call of the Spirit of God. It was, as Ezekiel said, ‘fire in my bones.’ Or, as Habakkuk said, ‘the oracle of God.’ Or, as Amos said, it was ‘the roar of the lion.’ Perhaps the Apostle Paul said it best in 1 Corinthians 9:16, ‘Necessity is laid upon me, yea, woe is me if I preach not the Gospel.’ It was a sad day in the life of Jonah when he felt that his ministry was over.
And I think it is a sad day in the life of a Christian when we think that God has nothing left for us to do or say; when we think that He can no longer use us in His service.
Here then is the principle:
God will use us again in spite of our disobedience, if we repent and return to Him.
Close:
I don’t know where you are in your relationship to God today, but I do know this – that, from time to time, you will find a little bit of Jonah in each of us. We all have those times when we turn away from God’s Word, God’s Will and God’s Presence.
The result of all that is that we no longer hear Him when He speaks to us therefore we turn to circumstances of life for our guidance and suddenly the ways of the world around us seem so convenient than hearing God speak to us. And when that happens, eventually we forget who we are, ‘Christians – Anointed Ones,’ and we begin to think that God can never use us again.
The happy ending is this, that you and I really can’t run from His Word or His Presence. If we are truly His children He will always be with us. He will follow us everywhere. As David said,
‘Where can I go from your Spirit? Where can I flee from your presence?
If I go up to the heavens, you are there;
If I make my bed in the depths, you are there?
Even there your hand will guide me,
Your right hand will hold me fast.
Psalm 139:7 -8.
