Man Overboard – Jonah 1:11 – 2:4.
‘A few centuries before Christ, Alexander the Great conquered almost all of the known world with his military strength, cleverness, and diplomacy. One day Alexander and a small company of soldiers approached a strongly defended, walled city. Alexander, standing outside the walls, raised his voice, demanding to see the king. The king, approaching the battlements above the invading army, agreed to hear Alexander’s demands.
“Surrender to me immediately,” commanded Alexander.
The king laughed. “Why should I surrender to you? He called down. “We have you far outnumbered. You are no threat to us!”
Alexander was ready to answer the challenge. “Allow me to demonstrate why you should surrender,” he replied. Alexander ordered his men to line up in a single file and start marching. He marched them straight toward a sheer cliff that dropped hundreds of feet to the rocks below.
The king and his soldiers watched in shocked disbelief as, one by one, Alexander’s soldiers marched without hesitation right off the cliff to their deaths. After ten soldiers had died, Alexander ordered the rest of his men to stop and return to his side.
The king and his soldiers surrendered on the spot to Alexander the Great.’
(From ‘Hot Illustrations for Youth Talks.’)
The king realized that nothing would stop the eventual victory of men actual willing to give their lives for their leader. The problem with Jonah the Prophet was this that he was not willing to give his life for the God he served. Instead he ran away from God. But God was not about to let him off the hook anymore than he is going to let you and I go our own way when we disobey Him and try to run away from Him.
As we review the story of Jonah this week you will need to remind yourself about three things resulting from Jonah’s disobedience.
The path of disobedience always leads downward.
Notice what happens to Jonah once he decides to disobey God. He goes down to Joppa (v.3). Then he finds and ship and heads out for Tarshish. Then we find him down below deck (v.5). But what happened next was something Jonah hadn’t counted on. You find it in verse 15 and 17. Jonah is down in the sea and down in the belly of a fish. I could give you several examples of young men and women who deliberately disobeyed God and ended up spiralling downward. Some ended up in jail; some ended up in poverty; some ended up in relationships which left them in a lifelong abusive situation; and some in addiction. Always the spiral was ‘down.’
The comfort of disobedience is only temporary.
For a while Jonah felt good. He was sure he had gotten away from God and even when a bad storm raged at sea Jonah didn’t even notice. Everyone else was in a panic but not Jonah. What was he doing? He was sound asleep – v. 5. But then, just as fast as he fell asleep he was awakened to disaster. The ship was about to sink. Jonah never saw it coming. That again is the way of disobedience. As one man said to me, “I knew it was wrong. I was away from home and my family and I had a one night stand. I didn’t think I would get aids.” Another said, “I didn’t think she would get pregnant and now I’m stuck with a loveless marriage.” The comfort of disobedience is only temporary.
The recognition of disobedience brings grace.
Look at Jonah’s confession in verse 12. He admits his disobedience but he doesn’t admit it to God. He admits it to the sailors. He is hoping they will throw him into the sea and end it all for him. It is not a full confession but it was the start and it was enough for God to turn to him in grace – v. 17. Note the words ‘God provided a great fish…’ That was the first sign of God’s grace at work. God could not forget Jonah because he ran away from him, anymore than you and I could forget our children who disobey us.
Well now, let’s get to the meat of the study for today. Here is the question I want to try and answer in this study:
How did God’s Grace work itself out in Jonah’s life?
The answer to that lies in the response of Jonah to this rather precarious situation in which he finds himself. He is in the belly of huge fish, probably been burned by all the stomach acids found in that fish and suffering from the worst sea-sickness a person could ever experience. How did he respond?
1. He Accepted with Reservation the Consequences of his Actions – v. 12.
A. He Admits his guilt.
In fact he does so first to the sailors and then, from inside the fish, to God. Look at 2:2 – ‘You hurled me into the deep into the very heart of the seas.’ Chapter 2 is the picture of a man repenting. We will take a closer look at that next week. But there is Jonah and he is admitting that he caused his own demise and God punished him.
We live in a time when people do not want to accept that God does meet out punishment to the disobedient. But the Bible is full of illustrations in which God punished those who were deliberately disobedient to Him. In the Old Testament we have the story of David who committed adultery and in the New Testament we have the story of Ananias and Saphirra, a husband and wife who lied to God. This is a biblical principle which hold true for us today as it did for them then and we need to be aware of it.
B. He Places himself in the hands of the sailors – v.12.
He thought by doing so he could get away from God, but it was the wrong thing to do. The punishment of man never reduces the punishment of God. I sometimes hear people say, “I’ve accepted my punishment and done my time. Why doesn’t God leave me alone?’ Unfortunately that is not the way it works. God does not accept the punishment of men as the price for our disobedience. Only when we turn to the grace of Christ can we find forgiveness from God.
C. He does not complain or try to bargain with God.
He knows he is guilty and that he has no defence at all. We sometimes complain to others, “Why is God doing this to me?’ Well, if it is God who is doing it, it is because we deserve it. Sometime we try to bargain with God. We say, “God, if you’ll get me out of this situation this is what I’ll do for you,” but God is not asking us to decide what is to be done for Him. He is asking us to obey. It is not the big things we want to do that counts before God, but the little things he calls us to do – little things like loving our spouses, teaching and training our children in godliness, respecting our neighbours, helping the poor, and so on.
2. He Affirms God’s Grace towards the Pagans – 1:12b.
A. He still believed in God’s grace.
He said that if they threw him into the sea it would become calm again. That was an affirmation of the grace of God toward people who did not even believe in Him. They worshipped their own gods but that didn’t mean that the true and living God didn’t care for them. Of course He does and He always will. That is why He calls missionaries and send them overseas. We do well to support those who take the Gospel and the love of Jesus to people in other countries. Whether they appreciate it or not is not the motive for supporting missionaries. The motive is the grace and the love of God.
B. He felt no grace toward himself.
I find this to be interesting because we see the same thing today. We sometimes see the Church willing to receive and accept anyone from the outside who comes confessing sin and professing faith in Christ, but at the same time it can be harsh to the faithful who fall into sin. We need to learn again what the Prodigal’s father taught his two sons, that grace is for those who stray and for those who remain mostly faithful. It’s for all people and all are invited to receive it.
C. He Expected God to act in grace towards the Pagans.
He said very definitely that the sea would become calm again. You will discover later in the story that this was a real problem for Jonah. While he acknowledged God’s grace toward the pagans, he didn’t want it for Nineveh (4:2).Jonah thought that the Ninevites were so wicked that God should show them no grace. Jonah needed to learn that God’s grace is for all people and there is no one so wicked that he is beyond the reach of grace. Grace, the unmerited favour of God, is free to all who will gladly and humbly receive it.
3. He Admits his Distress of Soul – 2:1 – 4.
A. Note what he says about himself – 2:1 – 2.
Note how he piles phrase upon phrase – in my distress…I called for help..currents swirled around me…breakers swept over me…I have been banished. Clearly this is a man who is deeply convicted inside. He is in turmoil and riding the currents under water is not helping. He wanted to die and he should have died but here he was for three days living helplessly in the utter darkness of a fish’s belly. It brought him to his senses.
B. He began to see Sin as God sees Sin.
Sin is both an affront to the holiness of God as it is an offence against the Law of God. Jonah had done both. He had, as it were, shook his fist in the face of God and deliberately broke his law.
C. True Repentance begins when you and I see sin the way God see it – 1:3 – 4.
When that happens the only option left open to us is to cast ourselves upon the mercy of God and wait for His grace.
4. He Acknowledges the Anger of God and takes the blame – 2:3 – 4.
A. He sees himself as obnoxious to God.
He realizes that he had deeply offended God and God was justly angry with him. God is rightly angry with us when we know what is right and we go ahead and do what is wrong.
B. He does not question the right of God to punish him.
All he can say is that he deserves everything he had got and God was perfectly righteous in doing this to him. God, my friends, has the right to punish us when we sin. He doesn’t always do it, but it is His right.
C. He is not angry with God. He had no right to be.
Over and over again I hear people say, “God ahead and be angry with God; it okay to be.’ Well, I am here to tell you that this is not the biblical way. We have no right to be angry with God for anything. We can only be humble before Him and accept His wisdom in what He does. If we are angry with God it is because we don’t understand His perfect holiness and justice.
Closing:
In closing today, we see in Jonah a man who ran away from God but God did not run away from him and God did not let him get away with it. God goes after him and brings him to the end of himself and back into a place of usefulness.
And you who are listening or reading this message must learn this, that there is nothing to gain by running away from God. He loves you so much that he is not going to leave you alone. And what He really wants to do is to bring you back to a point of humility and obedience so that He can pour his
