The Lord has a mission for His prophet Jonah. God has a missionary heart but He has disobedient prophet. Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden proved that you can’t hide from God. Jonah finds out that nothing has changed!

1. Jonah disobeys the Lord

He is to go east but instead he heads west! One is God’s way and the other man’s way. One is the way of obedience and the other the way of disobedience. One is the way of faith and the other the way of disbelief. One is the way of right and the other the way of sin.

You can know the truth about God, and yet disobey God. Jonah didn’t like the mission and decides to opt out. Notice that God did not immediately stop Jonah. He lets Noah go only so far before he meets God’s judgment. If Noah had noticed he might have seen the rats deserting the ship when he boarded!

Why did Jonah not want to deliver the message to Nineveh? You could think of a few possible reasons:-

• He was afraid – Nineveh was a great city and cruel. It was so large it took three days to cross. It was a suicide mission to even try.
• It was a lost cause – He was but one man and they were a nation of idol worshippers.
• The message was too severe – The message was fire and brimstone and would unlikely be well received. Few people like to be told off!

Yet is was none of these reasons! See chapter 4. Jonah hated the Assyrians and wanted them punished. He knew that is they repented that God would not destroy them! He was racist/sectarian in his thinking. God had a plan for Gentiles as well as the Israel. Jonah was too narrow in his thinking.

2. Jonah is found by God

You can run, but you can’t hide from God. It would have been so much easier for Jonah; and all involved; if he had just done as God had commanded. God had no one else in mind for the task and sends a massive storm to stop Jonah from running away altogether. Jonah may have won a battle but he was always going to lose the war. God has bigger weapons than what we have and He is not afraid to use them!

Jonah is so exhausted from running from God that he is fast asleep while the storm threatens to capsize the boat. The sailors are praying to their gods and throwing things overboard in desperation to save the boat. They awake Jonah and ask him to pray. When they find out the name of his God is they are really afraid. Then the cast lots and it becomes clear that Jonah is the source of the problem. His God has sent the storm and he confesses to disobeying Him. Who wants to be in the same boat as someone who disobeys his God?!

Jonah has the solution to the problem – throw him overboard! It seems drastic, but Jonah recognises he deserves to be judged by God. He doesn’t protest to God or the men. Throw him overboard and the storm will stop and the sea will be calm. This they do and the storm immediately stops.

This would seem to be the end for Jonah. He seems content to die rather than deliver the message! He has received his just judgment but God decides to save him!

3. Jonah is saved from death

God did not give up on Jonah or his plans for the thousands of lost souls in Nineveh. So Jonah is swallowed up by a great fish and three days later he is vomited back up on dry land – alive and well! Does he die figuratively or in reality? It is difficult to be conclusive but there is a miracle here. Jesus called it a miracle. See Matthew 12:38-40. It was not so much about being saved from a great fish as being saved from hell.

We see in the life of Jonah and Jesus – a death, burial and resurrection. Jonah and Jesus are both conclusively dead. There is no earthly way of them coming back again. The great fish swallows Jonah and death swallows Jesus. The whale could not hold Jonah and the grave could not hold Jesus. Three days and nights later they are released and have been resurrected from the dead. It is no wonder Jesus used this as a sign to unbelievers of a miracle that he would later do. Now they have no excuse. There is no greater miracle!

Jonah is sent a second time and this time he completes his mission. The people of Nineveh repent from the king downwards and God decides to show compassion. It was as Jonah feared. In chapter 4, God tries to give Jonah a lesson to show the error in his thinking. We are never told if Jonah finally got it. You want to be used by God? He can show compassion on whoever He wants! Our job is to deliver the message (as angels have done) and leave the rest with God.

Categories: Jonah