Jonah, the Book of Divine Revelations
INTRODUCTORY WORDS
We want, as we enter into the Book of Jonah, to speak of its historicity. There are many today who relegate this most marvelous message from the Divine pen to the scrap pile of ancient lore.
They have relegated Jonah to the scrap pile long ago,
Just because the God they worship, can't work miracles you know.
We take the Book of Jonah exactly as we take every other Book of the Minor Prophets, as one hundred per cent inspired by the finger of God. Observe the following reasons:
1. The Book of Jonah is the Word of God because of the marvelous message of Christ which it positively sets forth. This statement is true because Christ said: "As Jonas was three days and three nights in the whale's belly; so shall the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth." Here is no small matter.
If Jonah is a fable, then Christ built a literal resurrection on a fabulous and fanciful story; then Christ built a surety on an insecurity; then He built the most tremendous truth of all Christianity, upon a plain and unadulterable falsehood; then He built the most marvelous house that God ever built, upon shifting sand.
2. The Book of Jonah is the Word of God because of the marvelous message of Israel it proclaims. No one who knows the Book of Jonah can fail to see the far-flung revelation and prophecy concerning the whole House of Israel.
(1) As Jonah was sent to Nineveh, so Israel was sent to the world.
(2) As Jonah was truant to his call and ran away, taking ship to Tarshish, so Israel ran away, unfaithful to her calling and took ship to every nation on earth.
(3) As Jonah was followed by a great storm, so God followed His chosen people with judgments both severe, and age-lasting.
(4) As Jonah was swallowed by a prepared fish, so the ten and the two tribes of Israel have been swallowed by the nations.
(5) As Jonah was swallowed and undigested, even so have the nations whither Israel has been driven, been unable to swallow her. The miracle of miracles, a miracle which has stared us in the face during twenty-one hundred years is this Israel still lives, and lives under circumstances absolutely impossible from every human reckoning, and lives as Israel.
How great is the faithfulness of God! He has kept Israel, even as He kept Jonah.
(6) As Jonah was vomited upon the land, even so will the twelve tribes be sent back to their land. Exiled for twenty-three hundred years, and miraculously preserved, they are at this very moment turning their faces Zionward. Truly their return is but spelling out God's plan, and fulfilling His eternal purposes toward His chosen race.
(7) As Jonah was sent to Nineveh, so shall the Children of Israel be sent to the nations of the world. Jonah's affliction made him ready to give his testimony to a great city. Israel's affliction shall prepare her to carry the testimony of her God to the ends of the earth.
(8) As Nineveh was saved under the preaching of Jonah, so shall the earth be filled with the knowledge of the Lord under the preaching of God's chosen people. The Gentiles shall come to her light, and nations to the brightness of her rising.
I. THE COMMISSION OF JONAH (Jonah 1:1-2)
1. Jonah was sent of God. Jonah 1:1 says: "Now the word of the Lord came unto Jonah * * saying, Arise, go." Has not the same word come to us? God is saying unto every believer just what He said to the disciples, "Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature." Let none of us excuse ourselves as though we were not sent ones. We may not all be sent to the same place certainly not but we are all sent to some place. Among all the young people who read these lessons, there is not to be found one who has been excused from service.
2. Jonah was sent of God to a great and wicked city. God loves the lost. He loves the world, and it is to such that he is sent. God would not that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance. It is the lost sheep, the lost coin, the lost son, to whom God sends us. We are told to search until we find it.
3. Jonah was given a special commission, even to cry against Nineveh. We are not sent to placate those who live in sin. We are sent under the promise, that when the Holy Ghost is come unto us He will convict the world of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment. We are not to preach a soft, emasculated Gospel. We are to tell men that they are lost. We are to proclaim unto them the judgments of God.
4. Jonah was told of the wickedness of Nineveh. God said that their wickedness had come up before Him. Because Christ died upon the Cross to save sinners, and because the heart of God yearns after sinners, is sufficient proof that God wants sinners to be saved. It was the fact of sin that made the Atonement necessary. It was the fact that God saw sin that made it necessary to go and preach salvation from sin. At this moment the wickedness of men still stands in the limelight before the Almighty. Nothing is hid from His eye.
II. JONAH'S RUNNING AWAY FROM GOD (Jonah 1:3)
1. Jonah rose up to flee. Here is a man and a Prophet who flatly disobeyed God. He was sent to a certain city, with a certain message, and he refused to go. As we see it, there are scores of believers who are doing as Jonah did. Let us look at it this way. God has said: "To every man his work." How many saints are at work? Idlers are disobedient sons.
God has said: "Go ye therefore, and teach all nations." How many of the saints have gone? Not to go is to be disobedient.
God has said: "Return to thine own house, and shew how great things God hath done unto thee." How many saints have done this? They too are evil.
The Church of Jesus Christ which is His Body, washed in His Blood, saved by His grace, has literally rebelled against the commission of her Lord.
Thousands, yea, multiplied thousands, are like the man who wrapped his talent or his pound in a napkin and hid it away. The "do nothing" members are nine-tenths of the members of the average local ecclesia.
2. Jonah rose up to flee from the presence of the Lord. Every one who is disobedient to the Divine commission to go preach, flees from the presence of the Lord. Can we bask under the sunshine of God's presence, when we refuse to obey His voice? If we seek to go to some Tarshish via some Joppa, shall we think that we may have God's approval? The truth is, that every believer who is not a personal Soulwinner, and who in no wise is en route to some home, some wayside, some city, some land, to preach Christ is under the ban of God.
God has said: "How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him that bringeth good tidings, that publisheth peace." Shall we say, then that the feet of those who refuse to publish peace are beautiful? Nay, they are altogether perverse. To refuse the call of God to any service is sin; for he who "knoweth to do good, and doeth it not, to him it is sin."
III. THE GOOD AND THE BAD IN JONAH (Jonah 1:3, l.c.)
Our Scripture says that Jonah "found a ship going to Tarshish: so he paid the fare thereof, and went down into it, to go with them unto Tarshish from the presence of the Lord."
1. Wherein Jonah was good. He was good because he paid the fare thereof. He was at least honest. He stowed himself away in the hold of the ship, but he was not a stow-away. Perhaps he boasted that he had paid his fare.
In all of this, however, there is another side. The fact that Jonah paid his fare to flee from the presence of God, suggests that every man who flees God's presence will have some price to pay.
2. Wherein Jonah was bad. He went with them unto Tarshish from the presence of the Lord. Perhaps there is a twofold thought here. He went from the presence of the Lord; then, he went with them, that is, with those who knew not the Lord. He who would keep company with sinners in their evil way will certainly lose the company and fellowship with God.
What a sad picture confronts us. A man going away from God and going in company with those who knew not God.
As Peter followed the Lord afar off, he was preparing his own heart for sitting with the enemies, at the fire.
Do you think for a moment that those who mix and mingle with the world, can fellowship with Christ? Can those who walk with sinners, walk with God?
IV. THE MIGHTY TEMPEST (Jonah 1:4)
The two great "buts."
In Jonah 1:3 we read, " But Jonah rose up to flee."
In Jonah 1:4 we read, " But the Lord sent out a great wind."
1. The first "But" The flight. We wonder if Jonah thought that he could succeed in fleeing the presence of God. Do you think as much? Where can you go that He shall not find you? Does not He fill the Heaven and the earth? Truly God knows thy goings.
Run away from God? God is everywhere. Thinkest thou this O vain man, that God will not follow thee? Thinkest thou that God will cast thee off? Not if thou art His own. "For whom the Lord loveth He chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom He receiveth." Wherever you read or hear of "but Jonah rose up to flee * * from the presence of the Lord," you will also read or hear, "But the Lord sent out a great wind."
2. The second "But" The stormy sea. It was no small storm, but a mighty tempest. The sea was so wild that the ship was like to be broken. God was making sure of reaching His servant Jonah. The chastening of God is never a light matter.
Think of David who had grievously sinned. Did not the Lord cause his bones to wax old with their roaring all the day? For two years, misery was his companion.
Think of Achan, whose record is given in Joshua 7:1-26. Did not the judgment of God sweep him from the earth? It is written by the Prophet Jeremiah: "Know therefore and see that it is an evil thing and bitter, that thou hast forsaken the Lord thy God, and that My fear is not in thee, saith the Lord God of Hosts."
Did Israel suffer for her backslidings? She not only did, but she still suffers. The storm still beats against her frail bark. There is but one way that a covenant child of God, or a covenant people, can escape His mighty tempest, and that is by the way of confession, and return unto the Lord.
V. THE AFFRIGHTED MARINERS (Jonah 1:5)
1. No man liveth unto himself. Jonah sinned and rose up to flee from the presence of the Lord. The mariners who manned the ship on which Jonah fled were not to blame for Jonah's disobedience, and yet, they had to suffer along with Jonah. Lives are so linked and interlinked; interests are so woven and interwoven, that what any individual does, affects a wide circle of others.
Go into the home of a godless man. Be his wife ever so true, and ever so faithful to God, yet, she must suffer because of her husband's evil deeds. The children too must bear the sins of the father. The mother or the father, too, must suffer for the sins of their children.
There is no star that twinkles in the heavens, and twinkles to itself alone. There is no stream that carries death in its waters, that suffers its blighting curse alone.
When we think of the mariners driven with the winds, and nearly swamped by the waves, we think of the other boats as well as the one in which Jonah rode. We think not only of the mariners themselves but of the home people, all of whom would be affected, had the boats gone down in the storm.
The young man who recklessly drives an automobile, should think of the other occupants of his car. He should think of the other cars which he may strike, as he tops the hill, or rounds the curve.
2. Wherein the devotion of the heathen overlaps that of the saint. The mariners were crying every man unto his god, while Jonah was fast asleep in the sides of the ship. We have seen the heathen going forth at sunup to worship their gods, while Christians lazily slept on. Perhaps the mariners prayed because they were afraid. Nevertheless, they prayed.
We grant they were praying to gods who had no ears to hear, and no power to help; yet, they prayed. Jonah himself was the one standing in the need of prayer, and Jonah lay fast asleep. Let us be up, and at the place of prayer.
VI. A SAINT REBUKED BY A HEATHEN (Jonah 1:6)
1. The shipmaster came to Jonah. To us, the shipmaster stands for the unchurched masses, the men who know not God. Even such as they, can oftentimes rebuke a saint. We believe that the dancing, drinking, frolicking, card-playing, contingency of the world has very little confidence in the profession of a church member who lives as they live, and talks as they talk.
2. The shipmaster called Jonah a sleeper. That there was rebuke in his voice, we cannot doubt. There is a time to sleep, but that time is not in the time of danger; nor is it in the time when we are running away from God.
3. There was a call to prayer. The shipmaster said to Jonah: "Arise, call upon thy God." Poor Jonah, even with the storm raging, he durst not pray for the storm to cease. The only way that the winds could be quieted, and the waves abated, was for Jonah either to confess his sin to God, or to be thrown from the ship.
4. A heathen custom and conception. First of all, the captain of the ship followed the customary conception of his people, that disaster came to a sinning one, as a punishment from the gods. Secondly, he had the idea that if they could discover the one who was under the ban, that they could then, by removing him, remove the storm. While his idea is not usually true, it was certainly true in this case. Jonah, aboard their ship, and running from God, caused them all their trouble.
VII. JONAH'S CONFESSION OF FAITH (Jonah 1:8-9)
1. "The lot fell upon Jonah." Seeking to discover the one for whose sake the storm had fallen upon them, the mariners cast their lot, and Jonah was taken (Jonah 1:7).
2. The inquiry. As soon as Jonah stood forth as the culprit, those who gathered around him began to say, "Tell us, we pray thee, for whose cause this evil is upon us; What is thine occupation? and whence comest thou? what is thy country? and of what people art thou?"
We wonder if we are traveling among men, and covering up our identity? our faith? and the fact that we are followers of the Living and True God? Many Christians seem to feel it utterly unnecessary, when they are in the midst of unbelievers, to give any testimony of their allegiance to Christ.
3. Jonah's final confession. When Jonah, however, was put to the test and he could no longer hide himself, he bluntly said: "I am an Hebrew; and I fear the Lord, the God of Heaven, which hath made the sea and the dry land." After all Jonah was truthful. He acknowledged that he was a Hebrew. He acknowledged that he feared God. He even described his God as the Mighty Creator of sea and land.
All of this affrighted the men exceedingly. Thus they pressed further their questioning, and asked Jonah why he had fled from the presence of the Lord. Those were moments of intensity. Jonah felt that his flight from God was bringing disaster to all. He saw that he had, in truth, been unable to shield from God, or man, the fact that he was a runaway. He had been outwitted by the Almighty. It was at this point that Jonah's flight was broken up. God will allow us to go so far, but no farther.
Let those among us who are running away from God, stop and profoundly weigh the madness of their disobedience. Let them quickly repent and return that they may find mercy.
AN ILLUSTRATION
The second wireless operator of the Titanic said: "In the first place the Californian had called me with an 'ice report' about five o'clock. I was rather busy, and I did not take it. They did not call me again, but transmitted it to the Baltic, I took it down as it was transmitted to the Baltic about half an hour afterward. I was doing some writing at the time, sir, writing some accounts on the table. I continued to work on the accounts for about thirty minutes. Then I took the report she sent to the Baltic. It was an 'ice report,' so I knew it was the same she had for me. I acknowledged it direct to the Californian. It was that the Californian had passed three large icebergs, and gave their latitude and longitude.
"I wrote it on a slip of paper and handed it to the officer on the bridge."
"Did you make a record of it?"
"No, sir. If we made a record of all these messages we could not begin to make up our accounts."
Bride said he did not recall the name of the officer on the bridge to whom he gave the warning.
Christians are too busy with their daily toil to take warnings. Sometimes the warnings are in a sermon, in the Scripture, or they come while we are praying. We soon forget them.
Second Officer Lightoller of the Titanic told the Senate Investigating Committee that Capt. Smith and the other officers expected to encounter ice at 11 o'clock on the Sunday night of the disaster, or forty minutes before the ship struck; that Capt. Smith showed him a message of warning. He himself worked out the probable position cf the ice, and he in turn warned Chief Officer Murdock. He also cautioned the lookout men to keep a sharp watch ahead for ice. Publisher Unknown.