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Jonah Chapter
One
Jonah 1
Chapter Contents
Jonah, sent to Nineveh, flees to Tarshish. (1-3) He is
stayed by a tempest. (4-7) His discourse with the mariners. (8-12) He is cast
into the sea, and miraculously preserved. (13-17)
Commentary on Jonah 1:1-3.
It is sad to think how much sin is committed in great
cities. Their wickedness, as that of Nineveh, is a bold and open affront to
God. Jonah must go at once to Nineveh, and there, on the spot, cry against the
wickedness of it. Jonah would not go. Probably there are few among us who would
not have tried to decline such a mission. Providence seemed to give him an
opportunity to escape; we may be out of the way of duty, and yet may meet with
a favourable gale. The ready way is not always the right way. See what the best
of men are, when God leaves them to themselves; and what need we have, when the
word of the Lord comes to us, to have the Spirit of the Lord to bring every
thought within us into obedience.
Commentary on Jonah 1:4-7
God sent a pursuer after Jonah, even a mighty tempest.
Sin brings storms and tempests into the soul, into the family, into churches
and nations; it is a disquieting, disturbing thing. Having called upon their
gods for help, the sailors did what they could to help themselves. Oh that men
would be thus wise for their souls, and would be willing to part with that
wealth, pleasure, and honour, which they cannot keep without making shipwreck
of faith and a good conscience, and ruining their souls for ever! Jonah was
fast asleep. Sin is stupifying, and we are to take heed lest at any time our
hearts are hardened by the deceitfulness of it. What do men mean by sleeping on
in sin, when the word of God and the convictions of their own consciences, warn
them to arise and call on the Lord, if they would escape everlasting misery?
Should not we warn each other to awake, to arise, to call upon our God, if so
be he will deliver us? The sailors concluded the storm was a messenger of
Divine justice sent to some one in that ship. Whatever evil is upon us at any
time, there is a cause for it; and each must pray, Lord, show me wherefore thou
contendest with me. The lot fell upon Jonah. God has many ways of bringing to
light hidden sins and sinners, and making manifest that folly which was thought
to be hid from the eyes of all living.
Commentary on Jonah 1:8-12
Jonah gave an account of his religion, for that was his
business. We may hope that he told with sorrow and shame, justifying God,
condemning himself, and explaining to the mariners what a great God Jehovah is.
They said to him, Why hast thou done this? If thou fearest the God that made
the sea and the dry land, why wast thou such a fool as to think thou couldst
flee from his presence? If the professors of religion do wrong, they will hear
it from those who make no such profession. When sin has raised a storm, and
laid us under the tokens of God's displeasure, we must consider what is to be
done to the sin that raised the storm. Jonah uses the language of true
penitents, who desire that none but themselves may fare the worse for their
sins and follies. Jonah sees this to be the punishment of his iniquity, he
accepts it, and justifies God in it. When conscience is awakened, and a storm
raised, nothing will turn it into a calm but parting with the sin that caused
the disturbance. Parting with our money will not pacify the conscience, the
Jonah must be thrown overboard.
Commentary on Jonah 1:13-17
The mariners rowed against wind and tide, the wind of
God's displeasure, the tide of his counsel; but it is in vain to think of
saving ourselves any other way than by destroying our sins. Even natural
conscience cannot but dread blood-guiltiness. And when we are led by Providence
God does what he pleases, and we ought to be satisfied, though it may not
please us. Throwing Jonah into the sea put an end to the storm. God will not
afflict for ever, He will only contend till we submit and turn from our sins.
Surely these heathen mariners will rise up in judgment against many called
Christians, who neither offer prayers when in distress, nor thanksgiving for
signal deliverances. The Lord commands all creatures, and can make any of them
serve his designs of mercy to his people. Let us see this salvation of the
Lord, and admire his power, that he could thus save a drowning man, and his
pity, that he would thus save one who was running from him, and had offended
him. It was of the Lord's mercies that Jonah was not consumed. Jonah was alive
in the fish three days and nights: to nature this was impossible, but to the
God of nature all things are possible. Jonah, by this miraculous preservation,
was made a type of Christ; as our blessed Lord himself declared, Matthew 12:40.
── Matthew Henry《Concise Commentary on Jonah》
Jonah 1
Verse 2
That great city — It is said to have been one
hundred and fifty furlongs in length, that is eighteen miles and three
quarters, and eleven miles and one quarter in breadth.
Verse 3
From the presence — From the place where
God usually had shewed himself present, by revealing his word and will to his
prophets. Perhaps he might think God would not put him upon this work, when he
was got into a strange country.
Verse 5
Into the sides — ln some cabin or other, whither
he went before the storm arose.
Verse 6
Will think upon us — With pity and favour.
Verse 7
Cast lots — "Lots are an appeal to
heaven in doubtful cases, and therefore not to be used but where the matter is
undeterminable in any other way."
Verse 8
Tell us — What hast thou done, for which God is so angry with
thee, and with us for thy sake?
Verse 9
I fear — I worship and serve the true God; the eternal and
almighty God, who made and ruleth the heavens.
Verse 13
Rowed hard — They were willing to be at any
labour to save him.
Verse 14
Unto the Lord — Now they all cry to Jonah's God,
to Jehovah.
And said — Let us not perish for taking away his life.
Hast done — Sending the tempest, arresting
the prophet by it, detecting him by lot, sentencing him by his own mouth, and
confirming the condemning sentence by the continuance of the storm.
Verse 16
Feared the Lord — Perhaps as Jonah's casting
over-board was a type of Christ's death, so the effect it had upon the mariners
might be a type of the conversion of the Heathen from idols unto God.
Made vows — Probably they vowed, they would
ever worship him whom Jonah preached, the Creator of heaven and earth.
Verse 17
A great fish — The Hebrew word is, numbered, has
appointed him for Jonah's receiver and deliverer. God has the command of all
his creatures, and can make any of them serve his designs of mercy to his
people.
── John Wesley《Explanatory Notes on
Jonah》
Jonah 1:17
Many
people find it difficult to take the Book of Jonah seriously because they find
it hard to believe that a man could be swallowed by a shale and live to tell
the story. The following account of a modern-day man who underwent a similar
experience and did live to tell his story may be of help. The following account
is taken from the Princeton Theological
Review, Vol.25, 1927, p.636:
In
February 1891, the whaling ship Star of
the East was in the vicinity of the Falkland Islands and the lookout
sighted a large sperm whale three miles away. Two boats were launched and in a
short time one of the harpooners was enabled to spear the fish. The second boat
attacked the whale, but was upset by a lash of its tail and the men thrown into
the sea, one man being drowned, and another, James Bartley, having disappeared,
could not be found. The whale was killed and in a few hours was lying by the
ship’s side and the crew were busy with axes and spades removing the blubber.
They worked all day and part of the night. Next morning, they attached some
tackle to the stomach which was hoisted on the deck. The sailors were startled
by something in it which gave spasmodic signs of life, and inside was found the
missing sailor doubled up and unconscious. He was laid on the deck and treated
to a bath of sea water which soon revived him…. He remained two weeks a raving
lunatic…. At the end of the third week he had entirely recovered from the chock
and resumed his duties.
Bartley
affirms that he would probably have lived inside his house of flesh until he
starved, for he lost his senses through fright and not from lack of air. He
remembers the sensation of being thrown out of the boat into the sea…. He was
then encompassed by a great darkness and he felt he was slipping along a smooth
passage of some sort that seemed to move and carry him forward. The sensation
lasted but a short time and then he realized he had more room. He felt about
him and his hands came in contact with a yielding, slimy substance that seemed
to shrink from his touch. It finally dawned upon him that he had been swallowed
by the shale…. He could easily breathe, but the heat was terrible. It was not a
scorching, stifling nature, but it seemed to open the pores of his skin and
draw out his vitality…. His skin was exposed to the action of the gastric
juice…. Face, neck and hands were bleached to a deadly whiteness and took on
the appearance of parchment…. (and) never recovered its natural appearance….
(though otherwise) his health did not seem affected by his terrible experience.
01 Chapter 1
Verses 1-17
Now the Word of the Lord came unto Jonah.
Jonah, the runaway prophet
The commission may be viewed--
I. In its source. It is--
1. Supreme, as the Word of the Lord.
2. Peremptory; it is absolute, imperative, final.
3. Honourable. As associating the commissioned with the commissioner.
Investing him with royal rights, privileges, honours.
II. In its recipient. Jonah.
1. In his filial relationship: the son.
2. In his official capacity: prophet. Learn--
III. In its purport. “Arise, go
to Nineveh.” It is--
1. A summons to activity. Shake off dull sloth. Rouse thee from
careless ease.
2. A call to arduous duty. Note--
The behests of God
We are apt to think that this coming of the Word of the
Lord to men in ancient times was so special a circumstance that it has no
application to ourselves. How rarely it occurs to us that he who spoke to the
prophets in times past is now speaking unto us as directly and vividly, by the
ministry of the Holy Ghost. How are we to understand that the Word of the Lord
has come to us? Have we a strong conviction of duty? That is the Word of the
Lord. We should ask, not “what is expedient?” but “what is right?” If a thing
is right, then it is a revelation from God; it is a testimony of the Holy Ghost
in my heart; and at all risks it must be done. No man knows what he is, and
what he can do, until he knows the severity of the behests of God. Our call,
like Jonah’s, is to go wherever wickedness is, and cry against it. Every child
of God is to be a protesting prophet. Every earnest man is to have no
difficulty in finding the word of condemnation when he comes into the presence
of sin. In Jonah we have a man falling below the great occasions of life. Every
man has some great chance put into his hands. How possible it is to be doing
instead some little peddling work, to be mistaking fuss for energy, and an idle
industry for that holy consecration which absorbs every power. It is said that
Jonah “paid his fare.” How particular some of us are about these little
pedantries of morality! Many of us are making up by pedantries what we are
wanting in the principles of our life. We have good points without having a
good soul; we have beautiful characteristics without having a solid and
undoubted character. Jonah has paid his fare, but he has forsaken God. Can a
man like that do anything right? It is said that the mariners “ cast forth
their wares.” The bad man never suffers alone. This bad man causes a loss of
property. He paid his fare, but it was taken out again in the loss of the
wares. Wickedness is the cause of social loss What a crying out for gods there
is in the time of trouble! Note the instinctiveness of the religious element
that is in man. We are all religious. What was wrong was found out at last, in
the case of Jonah, and they cast him into the sea, which then ceased from its
raging. Nothing is ever settled until it is settled right. (Joseph Parker,
D. D.)
Jonah
was a man of the northern kingdom,--an Israelite prophet, who had
been foretelling the highest prosperity to which the Ten Tribes ever attained,
and the widest extension which, under Jeroboam II., their territory ever
received. Nineveh was a Gentile, that is to say, a heathen city; the very city,
moreover, from which were to come those judgments and the destruction which
prophets like Jonah’s contemporary, Amos, were about this time beginning to
announce as certain to fall upon Israel at no very distant date. Jonah, the
Israelite, then, was sent to a heathen city, and--whether he knew it or not--to
that particular enemy of his country from which there was most to fear. To an
Israelite patriot, with even the smallest intimation of this, how natural to
say, “To Nineveh?” No, let Nineveh go on and sin, and perish; the sooner the
safer for my country. To warn Nineveh, and so to turn away its doom--what is
that but to keep alive the fire which is to consume our Samaria and our
national life? In any case, whether Jonah felt any patriotic difficulty or not,
the religious difficulty was great enough. To go to heathen people with God’s
message, one of mercy as he saw clearly, quite as much as of judgment--that
alone was repugnant to all his instincts. “No; rather let me no longer be one
of the prophets who stand in the presence of Jehovah, ready for any errand,
awaiting His commands. Rather let me lay down my office, and go out from before
His face. Let me die first!” That is the heart of a good man, but of a narrow
one. It is not the heart of the God even of the Old Testament. It is sometimes
made matter of reproach to the New Testament, and to Christianity, as it is
there expounded, that it makes little or no account of patriot ism. There is
some truth in the criticism; but why? Patriotism has often been a noble thing; but
it is really a narrow thing, narrower, at any rate, than the heart and view of
God. The patriot sees and loves his fellow-countrymen; God only sees man! He
loves Israel, even to idolatrous Israel of the Ten Tribes. But God loves the
world. God so loved the world that He would have one of the earliest, if not
the earliest, of the prophetic writers to go and offer His mercy to a heathen
city, the enemy of His people. (H. J. Foster.)
The character of Jonah
One of the most remarkable facts about the Book of Jonah is, that
while he himself is so prominent in it, yet there is not a word from beginning
to end of comment upon his character and conduct. No word is said of his state
of mind, his sense of sin, his repentance, his return to the attitude of
submission and prompt obedience to the Divine command. The facts are set before
us in the barest, most naked simplicity, without one single sentence of
reflection. The only probable and consistent view of the work is, that Jonah
wrote it himself. He therefore said as little about himself as possible. He
told the facts with all their weight of meaning against his own character, just
as they were, without a line of exculpation or condemnation.
1. The first point at which the narrative may be said to touch the
personal character of the prophet is the flight to Joppa. Here is a man,
conscious of special inspiration and authority, doing direct violence to the
Word of the Most High! We must begin our study with this conviction--Jonah
meant nothing throughout like determined rebellion against God. From the first
he seems to have understood the mission to have been one of mercy, and not of
destruction. The man had laid hold of the thought of Divine goodness and
compassion. Jonah’s sin was not apostasy from God. He simply shrunk from the
mission. The struggle in Jonah’s mind must have been the result either of
personal feeling or of mistaken ideas. It may have been personal feeling that
lay at the root of his conduct. There was personal danger. He did not care to
preach to heathen. But his feelings were founded on false ideas about God, and
about the people of God, and their vocation. Another view may be taken of
Jonah’s mind. He anticipated the result of his mission, and did not like it.
His prediction would be falsified in the result. And a mission to the
stronghold of heathenism seemed quite a new departure in the religious history
of Israel. It seemed to Jonah a change in the Divine action, so stupendous that
he could not drive out of his mind doubts as to the authority of the message.
2. Look at another point,--the sleep into which the prophet fell
instantly that he went down into the ship is quite consistent with a state of
perplexity and fear. He was so wearied with the mental strain and struggle, so
burdened with the weight of a reproachful conscience, that he gladly hid
himself from the faces of his fellow-men, and sought the darkness and solitude
of his sleeping place, where nature asserted its demands, and he was soon wrapt
in unconsciousness. When he was awakened he had no crime to confess, such as
heathen men would understand, and condemn by the light of moral law. Jonah’s
character was defective rather than corrupt. Like the Apostle Peter, he needed
a great deal of teaching, but the root of his piety was sound and deep. He put
himself at once into the hands of the chastising Jehovah. (R. A. Redford, M.
A.)
Jonah regarded as a type
1. In his solemn discovery and apprehension. Sin hath entered among
us, and the Creator is angry. Some victim is awanting to pacify His just indignation;
but where is the sacrifice to be found? At length a merciful Heaven interposes,
and the sacrifice is revealed.
2. In the generous self-devotement of the prophet. Applied to the
doctrine of substitution, everything is plain, everything is instructive.
3. In his descent to the place of the dead. Two circumstances in the
descent of Jonah.
4. In the doctrine of Messiah’s resurrection.
5. In the mission of Jonah to the Gentiles. His was just the
commission of Jesus. To the lost sheep of the house of Israel He first turned
His eyes; then He sent His disciples to the four winds of heaven, saying,
“Preach the Gospel to every creature.” (James Simpson.)
Verse 2
Go to Nineveh, that great
city, and cry against it.
The comparative corruption
of great cities proposition
That though by no means
exclusively, yet in cities that are great and luxurious, integrity is exposed
to peculiar snares, and depravity cherished to an extraordinary growth.
I. Explain this proposition.
1. We confine human depravity to no combination of circumstances. In
some situations, it is true, the poison may evolve its noxious qualities more
fully and freely than in others; but in one way or another it makes itself
manifest in all. It is not intended to represent this depravity as in itself
essential to our nature. Sin is not essential, but accidental, to our nature.
2. It should also be observed, that in great cities there are even
advantages which are nowhere else to be so fully enjoyed. The children of this
world, wise in their generation, instantly discern the advantages of city
situations, in reference to their particular pursuits. Beside the civil and
intellectual, there are moral and religious advantages which, in more
sequestered situations, we can scarcely hope to enjoy. In cities there is an
easy and regular access to the ordinances of grace.
3. There are peculiar temptations, to which more obscure situations
are liable. In solitude the mind is in danger of being filled with prejudices,
and the heart with passions, which at once destroy present tranquillity and
endanger future well-being.
II. Illustrate the subject before us. That in populous cities
corruption peculiarly prevails. Consider--
1. The multitude of transgressors.
2. The aggravated nature of the sins there particularly indulged.
3. The individual sinner usually attains a degree of presumptuous
hardness, not common in less frequented scenes.
III. The causes from which this peculiar depravity proceeds.
1. The depravity of the heart is the groundwork of the whole.
2. Neglect of parental instruction.
3. The infectious power of example.
4. The chilling influence of the world.
5. The seducing influence of luxury. (James Simpson.)
Every man his call
This same event comes to
every man. Do not suppose that Jonah is a lonely creature afar off in the ages
somewhere, having an experience unique and incommunicable. The experience of
Jonah is the experience of every good man. What is your call in life? To go
wherever wickedness is, and cry against it. Nineveh has perished, but
Ninevitish iniquity is upon our streets, is throwing its shadow upon our
thresholds, is sending a keen wail of pain and blasphemy through the very air
that blows about us. Every child of God is to be a protesting prophet. Every
earnest man is to have no difficulty in finding the word of condemnation when
he comes into the presence of sin. If we could realise this call, all the
Lord’s people would be prophets. Is it not a burden to speak against
wickedness? Where is the man that dare do it? It is easy to condemn wickedness
generally. The difficulty is to say to the individual--“Thou art the man.”
Almost anybody can stand up before a thousand people, and speak against
iniquity in the mass. But he must be a lion from God that dare say to the
individual criminal,” I charge you, in the name of the Living One, with doing
things that are wrong.” Still, it is well that we should have men who stand up
in the midst of cities, and who let the cities know that there are eyes upon
them that see things in moral relationships, and aspects, and consequences: and woe betide the
cities of the earth
when the voice of the prophet is no longer heard in them. It is a harsh voice,
it is a piercing cry; but believe it, and regeneration comes, and restora tion
and lost peace return, and things are set right before the face of God. (Joseph
Parker, D. D.)
Jonah’s commission
The city to which
he was com missioned was remarkable for its magnitude and its wickedness.
1. Nineveh was a great city in many respects.
2. Nineveh was a guilty city. Cruelty was the characteristic vice. No
man in Nineveh was secure from the violence to which its people were prone.
3. Nineveh was a Gentile city. It was this circumstance which chiefly
rendered the commission addressed to Jonah so remarkable. It was so unusual
that it startled Jonah. God displayed His interest in the welfare of mankind at
large, even at that remote and unripe epoch. The Israelites were slow to learn
that God did thus interest Himself in the welfare of the Gentiles. Now consider
the disobedience of Jonah to the mandate addressed to him. The prophet’s object
was to flee from the presence of the Lord; i.e., to get as far as
possible beyond the range of those manifestations of the Divine presence which
were peculiar to Palestine and its neighbourhood. Jonah sought to escape from
such a consciousness of the Divine presence as he had been accustomed to
experience in his own country, and may have regarded as peculiar to it. The
presence of the Lord had become intolerable to Jonah from the moment that his
want of sympathy with the Divine will in relation to Nineveh had become
apparent to himself. Moreover, Jonah was an official of high rank in the
theocracy, and his words may mean, “I will resign my office rather than
undertake this duty.” But he had no right to resign the office he held in the
service of Jehovah. His guilt and presumption are apparent; but have we not
been as guilty and presumptuous as he; shrinking from duties that we knew were
laid upon us? (Samuof Clift Burn.)
Jonah sent to Nineveh
A natural
interpretation of the book is this,--Jonah had as great contempt for the
heathen as his bigoted brethren of Israel. He was sent on a mission of mercy to
his political enemies. As he had never learned to love his enemies, he fled
from so distasteful a service. He was disciplined in the stomach of a fish till
he was willing to deliver formally the commission given. He preached in
Nineveh, still hating those who, if spared, might overthrow Israel. He was
further disciplined by the lesson of the gourd. He at last learned the lesson
of pity, and rejoiced in the good that accrued to his enemies, singing,
“Salvation is of the Lord.”
I. The prophet’s commission to bless his enemies. About 825 b.c. God
sent Jonah with a message to Nineveh, which was regarded by Israel as its
natural enemy.
II. Jonah’s refusal to accept a mission of mercy to his foes. Jonah
was not a son of Satan, but a wilful servant of the Lord, who, by reason of false
views, failed to comprehend Jehovah’s broad policy in the government of this
world.
III. How God humiliated His prophet before heathen sailors. Humiliating
must have been the confession that he who knew move about holy things than all
others on board was afraid to trust and obey his own God.
IV. How the heathen sailors made friends with Jonah’s God. The
prophet’s acknowledgment of his fear of Jehovah struck a nameless terror to the
consciences of the crew. They did their best to save him from his fate, but all
was in vain. When Jonah was cast overboard, and the storm ceased, they felt
that Jonah’s God was the true God, and must henceforth be their God. (Boston
Homilies.)
God speaking to man in
mercy, and man fleeing from God in disobedience
I. GOD SPEAKING TO MAN IN MERCY.
1. Here He speaks. “The Word of the Lord.” His Word to Jonah, like
His word to all men, was clear, brief, weighty, practical.
2. Here He speaks to an individual. He speaks to all men in nature,
conscience, history; but in sovereignty He singles some men out for special
communications.
3. Here He speaks to an individual for the sake of a community.
“Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city.” Why does God call it a great city? To
men it was considered “great,” great in numbers, pomp, pretensions, masonry.
But to God it could only be great in sin, for sin is a great thing to God; it
is a black cloud in His universe. For the sake of this city, in order to effect
its moral reformation, and therefore to save it, Jonah receives a commission.
“Arise,” shake off thy languor, quit thyself for action, and to work out the
ideas of the Infinite. No other creature on earth has this power.
II. Man fleeing from god in disobedience. “But Jonah rose up to flee
unto Tarshish, from the presence of the Lord.” Here is a threefold revelation
of man.
1. His moral freedom. God did not coerce Jonah, did not drive him to
Nineveh. Man has power to resist God--a greater power, this, than can be found
in all the heavenly orbs, or in the whole history of material organisms. This
power invests man with all but infinite importance, links him to moral
government. “Ye do always resist the Spirit of God.”
2. His daring depravity. Alas! men have not merely the power but the
disposition to oppose God. This is their guilt and their ruin; it is what men
are doing everywhere, trying to break the shackles of moral responsibility,
trying to elude the Infinite.
3. His egregious folly. His endeavouring to escape from God was--
Jonah’s commission
1. When God has a work to do He is never at a loss for agents to
accomplish His purposes. The Lord, on some occasions, fixes on instruments
which appear to us the least suitable. All fitness is of God; He finds none fit
for His service till He makes them so, and He can qualify the most defective. Should
any ask why God fixed upon Jonah, and preferred him before any man on earth for
this important service? We answer that God giveth no account of His matters;
and though His footsteps are in the great deep, He never errs in judgment. The
Word of the Lord came to Jonah. He knew who spoke to him, and what He
said,--yet he was disobedient to the heavenly call.
2. The commission which God gave to Jonah. Great cities are great
evils, seminaries of vice, and schools for profligacy. The more the fallen
children of men herd together, the more deeply they corrupt one another. Cities
may be great in many respects, and yet little in God’s account, because they
are low in all real excellence.
3. Nineveh was ripe for destruction. Mark carefully, that all our
sins go up before God, and are registered in His book of remembrance, with a
view to the day of judgment. Cry against this “great city.” “Their” sins have
cried long and loud against Me, and now My vengeance from heaven shall cry
against them. When sinners kindle anger in the bosom of God, who is love
itself, great must be their guilt, and tremendous will be their judgments when
love turns to wrath. Nineveh is ripe for ruin; God is coming in His wrath
against it; yet He halts by the way, and sends His messenger first, to say that
He Himself is coming. (Thomas Jones, of Creaton.)
The reasons for Jonah’s
mission to Nineveh
Jonah was a suitable
agent, but he was not indispensable. God called him, but He could do without
him. To be the bearer of such a message as that which is here recorded could
not in itself be pleasant, but it was highly honourable. To refuse to speak in
such a case, at Divine bidding, was almost to take part with the wrong-doers,
and is recorded in this book, by Jonah’s own hand, to his personal discredit.
There is but this one reason for the mission stated here; but there were at
least several other reasons in reserve--some gently hinted, some unrevealed
until ages afterwards. God, as we know, not only kindled in the indignation of
justice against what was wrong, but He longed for the repentance of the
wrong-doers, and for the manifestation of His mercy among them when thus
penitent. He thought, too, of the future; of the use He would make of that
people when His people should be led among them captive. As He sent Joseph into
Egypt, He will send Jonah into Nineveh, to provide a remedy for a coming evil,
a home for a captive people. He thought, too, of the far future of the world,
and of the spiritual use to be made of the penitence of that wicked people in
the proclamation of His mercy by the Gospel. He has made the Ninevites “a
pattern” to all cities and ages--a proof that shall be known as long as history
remains, that if a whole city, full of sinners, turn unto the Lord, they shall
live. Whether Jonah knew much of these and such like reasons or not, it is
certain that he knew quite enough to make the road to Nineveh, far and
difficult as it might be, the Lord’s highway of duty and life to him; and any
way else he could find, the devil’s road of crookedness, danger, and death. (A.
Raleigh, D. D.)
Verse 3
But Jonah rose up to flee unto Tarshish.
The refusal to obey a God-given charge
Jonah sullenly resolved not to obey God’s voice. What a glimpse
into the prophetic office that gives us! The Divine Spirit could be resisted,
and the prophet was no mere machine, but a living man who had to consent with
his devoted will to bear the burden of the Lord. One refused, and his refusal
teaches us how superb and self-sacrificing was the faithfulness of the rest.
Jonah represents the national feelings which he shared. He refused because he
feared success. God’s goodness was being stretched rather too far if it was
going to take in Nineveh. His was the spirit of the prodigal’s elder brother.
Israel was set among the nations, not as a dark lantern, but as the great
candlestick in the temple court proclaimed, to ray out light to all the world.
Jonah’s mission was but a concrete instance of Israel’s charge. All sorts of
religious exclusiveness, contemptuous estimates of other nations, and that
bastard patriotism which would keep national blessings for our own country
alone, are condemned by this story. Note the fatal consequences of refusal to
obey the God-given charge. Jonah only meant to escape from service. The storm
is described with a profusion of unusual words, all apparently technical terms,
picked up on board. No wonder that the fugitive prophet slunk down into some
dark corner, and sat bitterly brooding there, self-accused and condemned, till
weariness and the relief of the tension of his journey lulled him to sleep. It
was a stupid and heavy sleep. Over against the picture of the insensible
prophet is set the behaviour of the heathen sailors, or “salts,” as the story
calls them. Their conduct is part of the lesson of the book. Their treatment of
Jonah is generous and chivalrous. They are so much touched by the whole
incident that they offer sacrifices to the God of the Hebrews, and are, in some
sense, and possibly but for a time, worshippers of Him. All this holds up the
mirror to Israel, by showing how much of human kindness and generosity, and how
much of susceptibility for the truth which Israel had to declare, lay in rude
hearts beyond its pale. Jonah’s conduct in the storm is no less noble than his
former conduct had been base. The burst of the tempest blew all the fog from
his mind, and he saw the stars again. His confession of faith; his calm
conviction that he was the cause of the storm; his quiet, unhesitating command
to throw him into the wild chaos foaming about the ship; his willing acceptance
of death as the wages of his sin--all tell how true a saint he was in the
depths of his soul. The miracle of rescue is the last point. Jonah’s repentance
saved his life. The wider lesson of the means of making chastisement into
blessing, and securing a way of escape--namely, by owning the justice of the
stroke, and returning to duty--is meant for us all. The ever-present providence
of God, the possible safety of the nation, even when in captivity, the
preservation of every servant of God who turns to the Lord in his chastisement,
the exhibition of penitence as the way of deliverance, are the purposes for
which the miracle was wrought and told. (A. Maclaren, D. D.)
Jonah’s soft-will
The main features of the ease are clear, and from these we draw
the principles and lessons to be enforced. On the one hand, there is a Divine
commission and command distinctly and authoritatively given, with some of the
reasons for it annexed, although with others certainly not fully revealed. On
the other hand, there is a state of reluctance and suspense ever verging
towards actual disobedience--expressing itself, now in remonstrance, now in
request for exemption, now in moody and distrustful silence. The situation is
none so rare. The principles involved, and the lessons arising, are for all
time. The supreme and unchallengeable obligation of the Divine will when
clearly expressed. There can be no higher obligation to man or angel than that.
That will is always in harmony with the eternal principles of truth and
goodness. When God “speaks” to a servant, there can be no pretence for delay or
non-compliance, much less for disobedience. Obedience, promptly, fully given,
is the most beautiful thing that walks the earth. Prompt and simple obedience,
when we are sure that God speaks, is the way to clearness, virtue, honour,
strength, safety, and peace.
2. The exceeding danger of a mood of hesitation or remonstrance. We should
watch with great self-jealousy the moral hesitations of the will, and the
silent petitionings for delay or exemption. All such heart movements are
fraught with peril. Divine light is given for “walking” and “working.” In most,
if not all of the critical moments of life, duty is revealed very quickly, and
made very plain and clear. In matters of expediency and prudence, wait for the
afterthoughts. In matters of conscience and present duty, take the first
thoughts that arise, for they are the Divinest. Happy is he whose action is as
quick as the impulse that calls for it! whose daily obedience has in it the
fresh colours of newborn convictions! whose feet sound the echo of God’s
“Arise”! (A. Raleigh, D. D.)
Jonah’s motive in his flight
This dereliction of duty could not arise from imperfect
acquaintance with God’s will. That is nowhere intimated in the narrative. It
was deliberate disobedience.
1. The arduousness of the duty may have been one cause of the sin. He
shrank from the service because of the hardships he supposed to be involved in
it. He thought of the journey; of the probable reception of his message by the
Ninevites; and of possible violence done to himself by them. If God calls to
arduous duty, He is prepared to give all needed grace for doing it.
2. The mortification of his own vanity. God’s mercy and forbearance
on repentance Jonah feared would be a personal dishonour to him as a prophet.
Rather than subject himself to the possibility of such mortification Jonah
chose to decline the duty altogether. This motive argues a painful obtuseness
of right human feelings. Learn--
1. In the prosecution of arduous and self-denying duties to seek the
help of God, and not throw off our responsibilities by shunning them.
Responsibility can only be met by the conscientious discharge of duty. Human
nature often shrinks, as Jonah did, from this duty, but let us be faithful to
God, and depend on Him for strength and blessing.
2. And let us discharge all our obligations to our fellew-men from a
sincere desire to benefit them and please God. Let us not mingle personal
vanity with any of our religious endeavours, nor be too anxious about our fame
and reputation. Our record is on high, our judgment is with our God. (Thomas
Harding.)
Jonah’s soft-persuasions to disobedience
How did he persuade himself to enter on a course of disobedience
to the Divine will so open and declared?
1. It was a long way.
2. The thing to be done was very difficult.
3. It would be natural that he should despair of any great success.
4. He may have thought that, in the event of attaining a spiritual
success, failure must come in another way. His own reputation would suffer.
Over-consciousness of personal character, and over-carefulness for the Divine
honour, were not of old, are not now so very uncommon.
5. The prophet had some dark forecast of evil to his own country from
the probable turn which matters would take, if his mission at Nineveh should be
successful. We cannot pass any severe and overwhelming judgment on Jonah. There
is too much reason to fear that his kind of disobedience is not at all
uncommon. Far oftener than many suppose, great and gifted spirits have shrunk
back from great responsibilities. See cases of Moses, Gideon, etc. (A.
Raleigh, D. D.)
The story of Jonah
The Book of Jonah is a prophetic history. It sets forth in
object-lessons truths which bring us very near to the heart of the Gospel.
I. The scorned
message of mercy. The prophet was the recipient of a Divine message. He was to
declare to the people of Nineveh their sins, and summon them to repentance.
This should have been an acceptable and agreeable duty. Why should Jonah have
closed his ear against the Divine Word, shut up his heart against compassion
for Nineveh, and fled from his duty? The answer uncovers at once God’s
compassion and Jonah’s sin. Jonah’s fault lay in narrowing the compassion of
Jehovah, and exaggerating the claims of the chosen people. His pride of race
overrode his humanity; his sectarian zeal consumed his charity.
1. What shall we say of one who refuses to enter upon a work of
salvation such as this? Jonah sinned against God and humanity.
2. If we seek downward for the tap-root of Jonah’s fault, where do we
find it? In false views of God’s nature.
3. There are still men and women--good but misguided people--who hold
that the salvation of God is limited to their Church. In the light of Jonah’s
story, we may regard all such people with sincere pity, even while we condemn
their presumptuous bigotry.
II. The sinner
pursued by God. If God is com passionate, He is also just. He pities Nineveh,
but He punishes Jonah. He pursues the offending prophet with a rod of judgment.
If we suppose that Jonah’s sleep was one of self-security, we may imagine the
sharp awakening to the sad truth of his condition.
III. A verdict of
the self-condemned. The behaviour of the ship’s crew at the climax of the storm
presents an interesting study. We are insensibly drawn to these rough pagan
mariners. We respect their manhood, we praise their virtues, we pity their
gropings after truth and duty, and long that they and such as they might have
knowledge of the one sufficient atonement for sin. We are drawn with even
tenderer sympathy to Jonah. He stands there on the tossing deck, self-condemned
indeed, but his whole attitude is noble. His fault has risen upon him at once
in its full magnitude. He neither denies nor extenuates it; he confesses it
fully, and he offers himself in atonement therefor. No wonder that the sailors,
profoundly touched by Jonah’s act, struggled to the verge of hope ere they
could find heart to sacrifice this man.
1. We see here a wonderful illustration of the force of conscience
when it is once awakened within the breast.
2. We have here a fine example of the operation of a genuine
repentance. What must have beer the influence of this experience upon Jonah’s
after preaching?
IV. Burial in the
deep. The miracle consisted not so much in the fact that Jonah was swallowed
alive, as that he was kept alive within the fish for three days. We must place
this miracle upon the same footing as other Scripture miracles. Our Lord
teaches that this burial and resurrection was a sign of His own burial and
resurrection (Matthew 12:40-41). (Henry C. M’Cook, D.
D.)
The prophet’s disobedience, and what came of his flight from duty
Jonah must have been a contemporary, or near successor, of Elisha.
I. His
disobedience and flight from God’s presence. All men at least try to believe
that they have good reasons for their disobedience. What was Jonah’s? Told in John 4:2. It was thought that God was
specially present in Israel. If he left the country he would not be at hand to
be sent on missions. His fleeing was a way of resigning his prophetic office.
Have none of us ever done as Jonah did? When God calls to service or duty, do
we never go another way? How easy to fancy that, by some means, we can escape
the Divine presence!
II. His arrest and
exposure. Thus far all had seemed to go well with the renegade prophet. For a
time the Lord allowed him to have his way. And so He does with us all. If one
chooses to run from duty, to decline service, to defer obedience, God does not
ordinarily interpose to prevent his doing it. The downward way is commonly broad and
smooth for a time. But, happily for us, God often finds means for the arrest of
the disobedient. In the case of the fleeing prophet, He made use of the
tempest. All sorts of persons pray in those great emergencies, which prove to
us how utterly powerless we are. There is a feeling, which seems native to the human
heart, that behind all physical ills there is a moral cause. Troubles come out
of sin. These seamen, imagining, as it is so common to imagine, that unusual
calamity is proof of unusual guilt, jumped to the conclusion that their present
peril was due to the presence of some flagrant wrong-doer. They thought that,
by means of the lot, the culprit might be detected. The lot fell on Jonah. In so
unlikely a way his sin had found him out.
III. His confession
and surrender. Crowding about this mysterious stranger, the questions of the
sailors fell fast and thick. They wanted to have his whole story. Jonah made
frank and full confession. There was no self-justification, but a declaration
that God is to be reverenced and feared. And he put himself into God’s hands.
Understanding, as a prophet, that only by casting him into the sea could the
tempest be stayed, he humbly, submissively, bowed his will to God’s. It is
precisely that spirit of penitence and trust which ever marks one as a sure
subject of that mercy which, whatever befalls the body, saves the soul unto the
life ever lasting.
IV. His
chastisement and preservation. It is clear that Jonah’s conduct had won the
respect of the seamen, and touched their hearts. They would save him if they
could. Jonah’s preaching and conduct had convinced them of the true faith; for
soon we find them offering sacrifice and making vows unto the Lord. True
penitence does not save from present and outward ills. The forgiven still need
correction, Note the blending of the providential and the miraculous in the
story. Having brought a self-willed servant to account and repentance, and
administered needed correction, it was the Lord’s will to restore Jonah to the
place he had deserted. The chief practical lesson is the great folly of
attempting to escape the service or duty to which God may call us. To obey is
easier than to flee. There are crosses and hardships in the way of obedience,
but they are far lighter than those which are sure to overtake unbelief and
self-will. (Sermons by Monday Club.)
Jonah’s failure
Jonah was unwilling to execute his commission;--not under a humble
sense of unworthiness and insufficiency;--this would have made him earnest in
prayer to God for the courage and strength in which he felt himself to be
deficient. This would, in fact, have been the very best qualification for the
work assigned him:
such feelings and such qualifications we find in Moses, Isaiah, Jeremiah,
Ezekiel, but he shrunk from it, through a distrust of God, and a dread of the
consequences. His faith in God failed; and then, what did he foresee at
Nineveh, but ridicule, and bonds, and death? Perhaps, too, he was living in the
enjoyment of comforts, which he must forego, for the chance only of returning
from his perilous expedition. It seems, too, that he was apprehensive that the
labour and peril might be encountered by him for nothing; for that, after all,
the mercy of God would spare the Ninevites, and then some might pour contempt
on his predictions. His motives were probably mixed: some of them might not be known to himself;
for, having resolved to disobey God, he yielded himself to the power of Satan,
who would pour darkness and perplexity into his mind, and would probably
succeed at last in persuading him that his offence was far from heinous, and
that the severity of the trial would almost excuse his sinning. Possibly he set
against this act of disobedience his former zealous exertions in the cause of
God; he excused his present cowardice by his former boldness--his present love
of ease, by his former self-denial and endurance of injuries. Thus, while he
regarded his own credit and ease and safety more than the honour of God and the
deliverance of the Ninevites, he deserted his post. Let us not condemn him; but
ask ourselves, before God, how we should have acted in the same circumstances.
(Matthew M. Preston, M. A.)
Faithless to a high vocation
Though the Israelites were the elect people, the mercy of
God was continually extending itself beyond them. He would from time to time
send prophets and messengers to turn them from their idols, to reveal to them
the knowledge of Himself, and bring them to repentance. Jonah resisted the call
of God, and refused to go to Nineveh. Why did he refuse to go? Because he
thought God would spare the Ninevites
after he, His prophet, had proclaimed their ruin, and he shrank from the
supposed humiliation of appearing in their eyes a false prophet. He shrank from
the sensitiveness of a proud nature. Another reason has been suggested, that he
passionately loved his country, and feared the uprising of this powerful nation
on its borders. It is said that Jonah fled “unto Tarshish from the presence of
the Lord.” Is it possible that he thought by a change of place to get beyond
the reach of the Divine displeasure? It is more probable that he fled from “the
service of God.” He meant to abandon his prophetic office. He was faithless to
his vocation, and would cast off the responsibility of a high calling. Dwell on
this unfaithfulness, and draw lessons from it. Are we not, each of us, like
Jonah, called to stand in the presence of God and to serve Him? We have each
certain duties and responsibilities, as clear and definite as the prophet had
when he heard the Word of God, bidding him go to Tarshish. We too may flee from
the presence of God. Our calling may require effort and hardness, and we shrink
from it. Jonah is the image of every man who, knowing the command of God, gives
up the path of duty, choosing in preference something more congenial to his
tastes and disposition, or some passing feeling, some desire or fear. The call
of duty will constantly involve giving up some interest or pleasure. Some
trouble one meets in daily life may try the soul and test its faithfulness. It
is always true that only he who doeth the will of the Father can enter the
kingdom. (T. T. Carter.)
The runaway prophet
I. What was the
reason for this flight? The cause of disobedience is to be found in the
significance of God’s message to the prophet. It was a message of judgment, and
yet, underlying it, as Jonah easily perceived, was a message of mercy. It
taught Jonah, and through him the Jews generally, that God had a grand purpose
of love and mercy to the Gentiles as well as the Jews. Such a thought as that
was utterly opposed to Jewish ideas. Jonah’s conduct is but the representation
of the whole national feeling. Jonah wanted the Ninevites and all other
Gentiles to fall under the judgment of God, and to be destroyed from the face
of the earth. This was the reason for his flight. Let us beware lest we should
find his sin lying at our door. God taught the same lesson to Peter when the
times of the Gentiles had fully come. We are now learning the lesson that the
Gospel of Jesus Christ is God’s message of love to no one nation, or select
few, but to every member of the human family.
II. What was the
object of Jonah’s flight? Not to flee from the omniscience of God. The object
of Jonah was to escape from standing before God as His prophet. He regarded the
revelation and voice of God as in some way confined to Jewish territory. Though
we, too, know that we cannot escape from the presence of God, we often fancy we
can fly where the voice of God shall not be heard by us. When God calls men to
go in one direction, and they like it not, immediately they set out to go in
directly the opposite.
III. The successive
steps of Jonah’s flight.
1. He went down to Joppa. His journey was downward in more senses
than one.
2. He found a ship, and paid his fare to Tarshish. Is there not quite
a parable in that paying the fare? It was the last barrier that kept him a
prisoner to his native land. Now he thinks he is secure.
3. He falls asleep. He is tired out. No obstacles have been placed in
his way. It seems as if everything had been providentially arranged. Yes,
Jonah, thou sleepest, but God sleeps not. Now God will have a beginning. (James
Menzies.)
The natural disposition of Jonah
It has often been remarked that religion and a good temper are by
no means always allied. Though it cannot, perhaps, at all times be said that a
religious profession is adorned by the meek and the quiet spirit so precious in
the sight of the Lord, it must be always remembered that true religion has the
most happy influence on all who in reality receive it. So far from producing
the evil with which it has often been associated, it is associated with it for
its correction, and does actually produce in due time its destruction. This sweet
subduing spirit can tame the roughest passions; it can humble the proudest
heart, and open the most avaricious, in a manner and to a degree that no other
principle can. The natural dispositions of Jonah seem to have been uncommonly
adverse. His supreme regard to the dignity of his own character, without
respect to what concerned either Divine manifestation or human comfort, was
selfish and arrogant; while his language with regard to the gourd, and to his
own personal sufferings, seems altogether to represent him as a person of a
proud, passionate, jealous, and intemperate mind. Indeed, so numerous and so
striking are the instances of his misconduct, that they afford occasion to
inquire whether he really was a saint at all? His wicked refusal of obedience,
with the subsequent attempt to escape when under a special appointment of
heaven, are circumstances in no respect favourable. His stupid security, too,
during the tempest, and his sullen silence during the subsequent investigation,
bespeak a state
of mind very foreign from that which the lively exercise of religion would
dictate. His angry complainings, also, at the dispensations of providence, seem
in no common degree to indicate the workings of an unmortified mind. Still
grounds are not awanting on which charity may found a better hope. See what may
be pleaded in his favour. (James Simpson.)
The unfaithful prophet
In those days the prophet was the organ of a Divine
revelation. He was the representative of that Holy Spirit who had been speaking
through many ages to the fathers. If a word came to him which went beyond the
ordinary scope of prophetic ministry it would be all the more solemn; it would
be very clearly not the prophet’s own, but “the Word of Jehovah” which had
“come to him.” To disobey that Word, to hide it within his own thoughts, to
take from it, or add to it would be a grievous sin, to be conspicuously
punished. It was “disobedience to the heavenly vision.” It was renouncing the
position and vocation of the Divine messenger. It was doing “despite unto the
Spirit of grace.” The whole book is a commentary on the expression, “Presence
of the Lord.” By the “presence of the Lord” is manifestly intended the organic
centre of Divine revelation. The radical conception of Judaism is the
foundation on which such an expression must rest;--it was that of a ministry
gathered about Jehovah, who is seated on a throne of majesty and grace in the
midst of His people. “The presence of the Lord,” regarded as a place, is the
chamber where the ministering priest, or prophet, is face to face with God.
Forth from that chamber he goes to fulfil his mission, whatever it be, whether
as a priest to bless, or as a prophet to speak the message, to proclaim the “
Word of the Lord.” Jonah rose up to flee from that centre of his spiritual
responsibility, to turn his back upon One who was telling him what to say and
what to do. At that special crisis in the history of His people such
unfaithfulness was specially sinful. (R. A. Bedford, M. A.)
The fugitive from duty
In estimating the character of Jonah we have no desire to
palliate or to exaggerate. His prominent sin was disobedience to God. It cannot
be said that he misunderstood the command of God. Could it be fear that induced
Jonah to become a fugitive from duty? It was the character of God which made
Jonah shrink from His service. Some of the fruits of Jonah’s flight from duty.
1. He rose up to flee from the presence of the Lord.
2. The fugitive from duty was degraded before his inferiors. Jonah’s
flight subjected him to the reproofs, examinations, and cross-examinations of
heathen sailors.
3. Jonah, no doubt, suffered much at the near prospect of death.
4. His misery was prolonged in a living tomb.
5. The fugitive from duty had to do at length the work he first
refused. When man contends with his Maker we may be certain who will be the
victor. That Jonah needed much refining in the furnace of affliction is evident
from the dross which remained after correction. Perhaps the Word of the Lord
was never entrusted to a frailer earthen vessel. After Jonah had passed through
the painful and humiliating punishments of disobedience, we find him still in a
deplorable state of mind, and using most unbecoming language to God. Jonah
should have known that when punishments are denounced as coming upon a nation, it is
with the understanding that they continued in their sin. If both Jew and
Gentile were acquainted with mercy as one of the glorious attributes of
Jehovah, where was the room for Jonah’s displeasure? But what Jonah did, we are
all capable of doing, if not prevented by Divine grace. There are those who fly
from duty, because pride hinders them from pursuing their most suitable
calling, those who intrude into sacred places for which they were never
designed; and generally, the unconverted. (W. Holderness.)
The disobedient act
“Jonah rose up.” So far then he was obedient. No. He only
rose up “to flee to Tarshish.” His mind was made up, before he arose, to
disobey. We sin in thought, resolution, will, before we take a single wrong
step. Had Jonah sufficient grounds for his disobedient act? Was not his
ministry in Israel a great failure? And if a great failure among his privileged
kindred, might he not reasonably infer it would be a greater failure among
untutored and degraded heathen? Moreover, it was a new expedition- there was no
precedent for him to follow. And did not he fear that God might turn from His
purpose? In the face of these considerations it may he asserted that he had no
honest reasons for shirking duty, for running away from God. Our failures may
be our greatest successes.
I. His disobedient
act was wilful. It was not done without deliberation. It was not done without
breaking through moral restraints. Jonah had a stern battle to fight with the
checks of conscience and the
promptings of his better nature. Through a whole “bodyguard” of moral
influences, monitions, voices, hindrances, Jonah had to cut his way to Joppa
for Tarshish. This made his act of disobedience all the more criminally wilful.
The harder the path to ruin the greater the guilt and punishment.
II. The act was
foolish. He
attempted--
1. The impossible. The Presence like an all-encompassing atmosphere
hemmed him in--beyond it he could not get. God meets man inevitably at every
turn of life.
2. He abandoned the indispensable. He thought he could do without
God, and so ventured on the mad experiment. God is a necessity.
3. He undertook the unmanageable. In fleeing from God, he flew in the
face of God. In trying to escape Him, he came into collision with Him. No man
is sufficient for such an engagement. How foolish is all sin! Disobedience is
moral mania.
III. His act was
encouraged by opportune circumstances. He “found a ship going to Tarshish.” The
accidental favoured the intentional. It so happened that the ship was freighted
for Tarshish, and Jonah came on the quay just in time to pay his fare and get
on board. Don’t blame the ship, but blame the prophet. Don’t censure the
opportunities, but censure the disposition which seized and made them
auxiliaries of evil intentions. Occasion for sin is no Divine warrant to sin.
1. Circumstances are rendered
moral or immoral in their bearing on human actions, only as they further
goodness or facilitate disobedience.
2. Opportunities in the way of transgression are accidental and not
Divinely appointed, which if availed of to accelerate rebellious flight will
entail heavier penal consequences.
3. The ready way is not always the right way.
IV. The act was
expensive. He might have gone down to Nineveh for less than it cost him to go to
Tarshish. He paid his fare in a very expensive sense. It cost him his peace of
mind, his conscience approval, his official honour, mortification of spirit,
risk of life, and peril of soul. As a mere matter of economy it is wiser and
better to be good than sinful. Sin’s pleasures, sin’s fashions, sin’s
companions, sin’s vanities are all prodigiously expensive. (J. O. Keen, D.
D.)
Neglect of Christian duty
Sleep is one of the great essentials to human existence. Sleep in
itself is right, but there is “a time to sleep.” Jonah’s sleep was sinful, it
was at the wrong time and in the wrong place. Look at this religious deserter
asleep.
I. It is a very
easy thing to neglect Christian duty. All that Jonah did was easily done. So
are neglect of
prayer, Bible study, services, work, etc., easy now.
II. Neglect of
Christian duty is a most dangerous practice. Jonah went to Tarshish at the
peril of his temporal and spiritual life. Every Christian who allows himself to
be led away into bypaths of spiritual indolence, lethargy, and neglect, will
suffer great loss, will imperil his soul.
III. It is not for
us to choose our field of Christian work. God sent Jonah to preach a short
soul-stirring sermon to the Ninevites. How much more would be done if all
Christians would just take the field God assigns them, and work with all their
hearts for God and Souls.
IV. The infinite
folly of attempting to get away from the presence of God. “Whither shall I go
from Thy presence?” The monarch who threw chains into the sea to bind it; the
boys who undertook to count the stars; these were wise adventures compared with
the folly of attempting to get away from God. Then “let us not sleep, as do
others, but let us who are of the day be sober.” (W. Rodwell.)
Sorrow follows disobedience
You are seeking your own will. You are seeking some other good
than the law you are bound to obey. But how will you find good? It is not a
thing of choice; it is a river that flows from the foot of the invisible throne
and flows by the path of obedience. I say again, man cannot choose his duties.
You may choose to forsake your duties, and choose not to have the sorrows they
bring. But you will go forth, and what will you find? Sorrow without
duty--bitter herbs and no bread with them. (George Eliot.)
He found a ship going to
Tarshish.
Fatal success
I. Attend to the
whole of the circumstances concerned. By partial and distorted views the most
magnificent objects may be rendered contemptible, and the most perfect
propriety ridiculous.
1. In this world the wicked often succeed, while the righteous are
involved in distress. If any man be exempted from trouble in the present state,
we should expect it to be a wicked man. The present is, with respect to the
wicked, the only season of forbearance, the only time of indulgence. If any
labour under a peculiar series of sufferings, we should expect him to be a
saint. Because the present is, to the believer, a state of discipline. We
cannot, however, conclude either that all the afflicted are righteous, or that
it is only the tabernacle of the robber that prospers.
2. All the success of the wicked is confined to external objects. It
would be affectation to say that man is independent of these.
3. The success of the wicked is but momentary. Duration is an
important measure of value.
4. The worst moral effects are produced by success on the conduct of
the wicked. But consequences cannot always be considered as a Standard for
regulating judgment.
5. The successful sinner would tremble did he look forward to the
sufferings which must eventually overtake his crimes.
II. The grounds on
which Divine wisdom proceeds in such dispensations.
1. Previous to such trials the sinner is already warned of his danger
in the Word. It is to this men are to look for a regulating law.
2. Such trials are seldom permitted until conscience has been grossly
violated.
3. No external obstacle can stop the career of the sinner.
4. Abused grace is properly and justly withdrawn.
5. These scenes of trial discover to others the dispositions that
were previously in power.
III. The marks by
which judicial may be distinguished from sanctified success. If sanctified it
follows you in a course of obedience to the Word. It is not a partial or
incidental circumstance. It recognises God as its origin. The effects will show
whence the prosperity proceeds. (James Simpson.)
Jonah’s flight
In the case of Jonah we have a striking instance of
Divinely located work and responsibility. How are we to know that the Word of
the Lord really comes to us? What more can any man desire than to be fully
convinced that his duty lies in a certain direction? We are so made that, if
true to ourselves, we shall have clear, sharply defined religious convictions;
and in so far as we are faithful in following them, we are in direct communion
with the Spirit of God.
I. Life has its
great occasions, and woe to the man who fails to successfully grapple with
them. God signally honoured Jonah by selecting him as the first preacher to the
heathen world. Human life does not always remain on the same key. Sometime,
some where, God arrests the old monotonous tune, and strikes the keynote to a
loftier anthem. Everything depends on how we catch the new tone, follow the
leader, and master the music. How possible it is to be unequal to our
opportunity, to let it pass unimproved, and to be doing a little paltry
work,--to be mistaking fuss for energy, and an idle industry for that holy
consecration which absorbs every power, and ennobles the man by the sublimity
of its motives and aims. There are hours in the lives of most men, compared
with which all after hours are poor and commonplace,--great critical hours,
pregnant with the possibilities of manhood and destiny. To fall below such
crises is a calamity which the future can never repair. Society is full of poor
men, both temporally and spiritually, because they did not manfully grapple
with the great occasions of life.
2. Opportune circumstances do not of necessity imply divine approval.
Here we see that a man may be strangely favoured by circumstances, who is in
open rebellion against God. Rightly to interpret circumstances is one of the
most difficult things in life. And a man who has become loose at the conscience
may so interpret them as to embolden and fortify himself in a life of sin. There are people who
make circumstances into a kind of Bible, and argue that, after all, it is
impossible they can be so very bad, or Providence would not thus conspire to
further their purposes. When a man gets himself mixed up with iniquity, it is
not much wonder that he tries to set up a kind of supernatural wisdom of his
own, as a sort of self-vindication. It is quite possible for a man so to put
circumstances before his mind as to be fearfully misled by them. Much charity
should be exercised towards those whose very circumstances invite their further
continuance in sin. Many a man has had reason to thank God that the ship left
before he got to Joppa; that was the only thing that saved him from disaster
and perhaps destruction.
III. A man may
ignore the claims of God and yet be scrupulous in his observance of the laws of
social justice and equity. Jonah “paid his fare.” Honest with the owner of the
ship, but dishonest with the Owner of the universe. God has claims upon us as
well as man: and any man’s
integrity is partial and ruinously defective that does not honour both claims..
IV. The wicked man
is a public calamity, a social curse. No matter how much the sinner may have
things his own way, God can head him off, frustrate his purposes, and convert
the very elements that were most friendly to his progress into instruments of
punishment and death. Learn that there is a right and a wrong way of settling
things. We must have a settlement with God on a basis of mediation and
righteousness, or the sea will always be rough. (T. Kelly.)
The unwisdom of disobedience
God said to Jonah, “Go to Nineveh.” “I won’t go; I’ll go to
Tarshish.” He started for Tarshish. Did he get there? The seas raged, the winds
blew, the ship rocked. Come, ye whales, and take this passenger for Tarshish.
No man ever got to Tarshish if the Lord told him to go to Nineveh. The seas
would not bear him; they are God’s seas. The winds would not waft him; they are
God’s winds. If a man deliberately sets out to do that which God declares he
must not do, the natural world as well as God is against him and the lightnings
are ready to strike him, and the fires are ready to consume him, and the sun is
ready to smite him, and the waters are ready to drown him, and the earth is
ready to devour him. (Christian Age.)
He paid the fare thereof.--
Paying the fare
There had been many hindrances in Jonah’s way to prevent him from
consummating the act of
disobedience, but he overcame them all. And yet this fact that he had paid his
fare might have startled him. It was the last hindrance to his headstrong will,
Had he gone to Nineveh he would not have needed to pay his own fare. But
deliberately selecting his own way, Jonah was left to pay his own fare.
1. Accept this feature of the case as a starting-point. Obedience is
economy; disobedience is expensive.
2. This was only a small part of the fare that Jonah paid. Only the
first instalment. In the second place, he paid his fare in the thwarting of his
purposes. He made more haste than speed. The ready way was not the right way.
If you will be disobedient, you must pay your fare in the thwarting of your
purposes.
3. As part of the fare the prophet had to pay for his disobedience. I
mention his moodiness and peevishness.
4. Part of the fare was the withdrawal of Jehovah’s presence.
5. He paid part of his fare in the loss of reputation. Regard to
reputation was the only defence he made. Reputation may be overestimated, If
the means is exalted into an end; if reputation becomes the be-all and end-all
of the ministry, there is no limit to the harm that may accrue. For the sake of
reputation Jonah declined tim call of God. And his disobedience was its own
punishment. (John A. Macfadyen.)
Sinful pleasures dear bought
The sacrifices required by religion are infinitely more reasonable
and light than those which sinful courses demand.
I. The sacrifices
required of the sinner. The boasted pleasure of the sinner is obtained at a
very disproportioned expense of time--of labeler--and of substance: and moreover to it is
freely sacrificed not only health, reason, conscience, but also the precious
soul.
II. The sacrifices
required of those who are the friends of religion.
1. Religion does not require the renunciation of any lawful
enjoyment.
2. Religion does require of its followers certain worldly sacrifices.
Such as a seventh portion of time. Jehovah demands of all His worshippers--
3. The total surrender of their persons. Your talents, with all their
energies; your will, with all its propensities; your affections, with all their
fervour, are exclusively and supremely His. The members of the body too are
become instruments of righteousness unto righteousness.
4. When sinners come to the Saviour they present Him with their most
cheerful services.
5. The severest sacrifice that religion requires is that of our
unholy desires. The service is severe, but the command is absolute.
III. Compare these
systems. Each has something to enjoy. The Christian needs not fear to grant to
the sensualist his luxuries; or to acknowledge the general depression of the
faithful. To ascertain the several claims of these systems observe--
1. That, while all the demands of religion are just, those of
iniquity are the vexatious claims of a tryant.
2. The demands
of religion are most gracious, whereas those of a tyrant are insatiable.
3. The services of religion are beneficial; those of the world
destructive.
4. The sacrifices of religion shall be richly repaid. Sin also has
its wages, and to the uttermost farthing they shall be paid. Choose then what
master you will serve.
Listen not--
1. To the seductions of pleasure.
2. Be not afraid of the reproaches cast upon religion.
3. Be truly wise. Listen to the cautions of Divine wisdom. (James
Simpson.)
One virtue cannot atone for a wicked course
Jonah’s attempt to run away was a foolish and wicked act, all must
admit; but there is one thing told of him that is very much to his credit: he “paid his fare” on
board the ship that was to bear him away to Tarshish. He fulfilled his
obligations to the shipowners in the matter of the passage money He was none of
your mean sneaks who, in running to destruction, try to go as dead-heads. Jonah
went on his way like a man. How often, by some such reasoning as this, men make
out a good case for themselves, or for others, in the face of flagrant and
atrocious acts. Men use some single virtue to cover much wrong or vice. I know
a young man who refused to obey the call of God, as clearly given as was ever
that to Jonah, and is satisfying conscience by the assurance of honesty in a
very different and self-appointed sphere. There is much of this Jonah business
on every hand. Men are sharp in their dealings, even to rank dishonesty, but
they talk well, and profess better. They cheat and shave right and left, but
they found a scholarship or a seminary, endow a college, or build a church.
They are helping to undermine every good institution in a community, but they
are kind and
obliging neighbours. Because the men that cheat, swindle, and murder us are
possessed of some single excellent virtue, we are asked to set it over against
their many nefarious acts and terrible failures in character and life, and call
it even. Not that we would undervalue or despise the admirable traits that
sometimes appear
in wicked and debased lives. We only utter our protest against the attempt, so
often made, to make them atone for the sin and failure by which they are
surrounded. We are all liable to be satisfied with one little pet virtue, that
blooms, perhaps, like a flower adorning a corpse. The way we help one another to this same
self-complacency over small virtues cherished in the midst of flagrant wrong,
is, perhaps, the worst part of the story. (Homiletic Magazine.)
Lifes fare
Men get “passes” of railroads--all must pay the fare who go
through life. Bible tells us there are two ways. You must pay the fare in
either case.
I. Broad way to
destruction. Fare?
1. Loss of conscience.
2. Loss of character. Character is built up by thoughts, words,
deeds, little by little.
3. Loss of Divine image.
4. Loss of soul. No escape. “The wages of sin is death.”
II. Narrow way to
life. Fare? Yes, we must pay the fare. The results are--
1. Noble character. God’s building.
2. Uplifting influence. People respect.
3. Satisfaction. Duty done; clear conscience.
4. Gain Heaven. Two ways are before you; which one will you take? (Homiletic
Review.)
The Lord sent out a great wind into the sea.
The Divine displeasure
There is a religious side to storms. Tempests have done what
spiritual teachers could not do.
1. Disobedience ensures punishment. No man can sin with impunity.
There is an absolute necessity for moral wrong to be judiciously dealt with.
2. The forces of nature are often the instruments of God’s corrective
or punitive purposes. There is a providence in all varieties of weather.
3. The sin of one involves others in its consequences.
From Jonah 1:5, we gather--
1. That in seasons of extreme peril the religious instinct invariably
reverts to a real or imaginary superior power for help. The religious sense is
in imploration to God.
2. That possessions are valueless when life is at stake.
3. That remedial measures to alleviate the consequences of evil are
futile while the cause slumbers undisturbed. Sin is the Jonah in every man
which keeps him in jeopardy and restlessness every hour.
From verse 6, we are taught--
1. That adverse circumstances often require to be supplemented by
direct appeal to arouse men to a sense of their perilous situation.
2. The insufficiency of nature to correct the false and teach the
true object of worship.
3. The parallel and divergent points in human history. The same ship,
route, port, etc., but widely different motives, ends, etc.
Verse 7 teaches--
1. That the casualties of life are not unfrequently associated with
wrong-doing. No calamity without a cause, no sin without a calamity, sooner or
later.
2. That necessity drives to expedients.
3. That detection will inevitably overtake the guilty, or the lot
fall on the right man.
4. That the extremities of men are the opportunities of God.
5. That one rebellious act sends its ring down the vestibule of ages.
(J. O. Keen, D. D.)
The disobedience of the prophet of Gath-hepher
This storm was not accidental,--accident has no place in
the government of God. It is the name for a cause or causes of which we are
ignorant. The sublimity of this description, and of others which occur in
Scripture, will be more apparent when you compare them with the account which
the heathen poets give of the deity to whom they assign the direction of this
element. The varied operations and agencies in nature and providence which
heathenism has distributed among lords many and gods many, the Bible centres in
one. What a humiliating contrast is here presented between rational and
irrational beings. Jonah obeys not. Inanimate nature waits God’s commands. The
following lessons may be deduced from the passage.
I. See here the
insensibility of the daring transgressor. Jonah had entered into a contest with
his God. The furious elements proclaimed the contest to be fearfully unequal.
While every one else is uniting his exertions and his prayers to avert the
threatened danger, Jonah had gone down into the sides of the ship, and was fast
asleep. Contrast our Lord’s sleeping during the storm on Galilee. But why
wonder at the insensibility of Jonah? Look around and you will see
insensibility as profound, and where there is the same difference between
insensibility and safety. Engrossed by pleasure or business, how many are there
who feel no concern for religion.
II. See the
difference between insensibility and safety. While the apprehensions of the
prophet diminished, his dangers increased. In endeavouring to escape from the
voice of God, given to him in prophetic direction, there was the near prospect
of his hearing that voice announcing his destiny from the judgment-seat.
Perilous, however, as the prophet’s situation was, it was not in reality more
so than that of thousands who nevertheless participate in the security. In the
one case as in the other, there may be but a step between the sinner and death.
III. The objects of
trust made the instruments of punishment. This is a marked feature of the
Divine administration. See the case of David numbering the people. God permits
Jonah to gain his object. Then his troubles begin. The vessel which he expected
would bring him to his ultimate point threatens to become the grave of him and
his shipmates. So men set their hearts on a favourite object. This is pursued
not only without reference to God’s will, but in manifest opposition to it.
They gain it. And out of this their vexation and punishment arise. This is
often seen in the acquisition of wealth.
IV. The duty of
recognising the voice of God in the events which thwart our wishes. “Affliction
springeth not from the dust.” It was God who sent forth that great wind which
put in jeopardy the vessel in which Jonah sailed. It was for the purpose of
arresting him in his course of disobedience--of bringing him to a sense of his
misconduct--and of leading him to seek forgiveness. What is the obvious use
which we should make of this narrative? The uniform doctrine of revelation is,
that sin hardens the heart, and tends to the still further commission of sin.
On this it grounds the exhortation to give all diligence to make our calling
and election sure--to be sober and watch unto prayer. (R. Brodie, A. M.)
The mariners were afraid, and cried every one unto his god.
Fear driving men to God
We see how in dangers men are constrained to call on God. Though,
indeed, there is a certain impression by nature on the hearts of men as to God,
so that everyone, willing and unwilling, is conscious that there is some Supreme Being; we
yet, by our wickedness, smother this light which ought to shine within us. We
indeed gladly cast away all cares and anxieties; for we wish to live at ease,
and tranquillity is the chief good of man. Hence it comes that all desire to
live without fear and without care, and thence we all naturally seek quietness.
Yet this quietness generates contempt. Hence, then, it is that hardly any
religion appears in the world when God leaves us in an undisturbed condition.
Fear constrains us, however unwilling, to come to God. False, indeed, is what
is said, that fear is the cause of religion, and that it was the first reason
why men thought that there were gods; this notion is indeed wholly inconsistent
with common sense and experience. But religion which has become nearly extinct,
or at least covered over in the hearts of men, is stirred up by dangers. Of
this Jonah gives a remarkable instance when he says that the sailors “cried,
each of them to his God.” We know how barbarous is this race of men; they are
disposed to shake off every sense of religion, they indeed drive away every
fear, and deride God Himself as long as they may. Hence, that they cried to
God, it was no doubt what necessity forced them to do. And here we may learn
how useful it is for us to be disquieted by fear; for while we are safe,
torpidity, as it is well known, creeps over us. Since, then, hardly any one of
him self comes to God, we have need of goads; and God sharply pricks us when He
brings any danger so as to constrain us to tremble. But in this way He
stimulates us; for we see that all would go astray, and even perish in their
thoughtless ness, were He not to draw them back, even against their own will. (John
Calvin.)
Fear at the prospect of death
Pliny, who was a contemporary of the Apostle John, made some close
observations of the animal world. Among other things he tells us of the mole--“Moriendo
incipit oculos aperire,” that is to say, “the mole first opens his eyes in
death.” And such is really the case, for the mole’s eyelids, on account of his
occupation, are closed all his life long, and only when lie is dying does he
force wide open his small black eyes and look round upon the world, and up to
the sky. Now, although the mole is not a favourite among men either for its
usefulness or its beauty, we may be permitted to say that most human beings,
created in the image of God, do just the same as the mole. Of them, too, it is
true that, for the most part, they only truly open their eyes, that is, their
inward eyes, in death. Then only, when about to leave the world and time, are
their eyes couched; not till then do they learn to distinguish between what is
something and what is nothing, what is vanity and what is true glory; and then,
for the first time, they look up to the inexhaustible sources of eternal life,
and discover, to their horror, that like deluded fools they have all along been
pursuing what was only illusion, deception, or imposture. Yea, only in that
hour do they who took so much pride in their own wisdom become wise in the
sense which Moses meant when he prayed: “So teach us to number our days that we may
apply our hearts unto wisdom.” So late do they begin to seek the antidote to
death. Thus we find the fellow-voyagers of the runaway prophet are full of
dread and dismay at the gates of death. (Otto Funcke.)
The superstitious infidel
The man who, in ordinary circumstances, refuses a just and
enlightened submission to the authority of God is, in the hour of calamity, of
all others the most likely to degrade his nature and his name by the low and
debasing services of a gross superstition.
I. Whence does
infidelity originate?
1. Not, assuredly, in the superior understanding of its subjects.
Were it even so, that the most acute individuals were found in the ranks of
infidelity, still infidelity
gains nothing unless it can either be shown that it is itself the cause of this
acumen, or that it results properly and immediately from its exertions.
Infidelity is the vice not of mature but of juvenile minds, or of those whose
minds never open beyond the attainments of indiscretion.
2. Infidelity, in very many instances, derives its origin from the
distorted views of religion, which superstition or bigotry present.
3. The grand origin of all infidelity is the pride and pollution of
the heart. Passion now usurps the authority over conscience, and the
understanding submits to the will. What we strongly incline to we are easily
persuaded to believe; whereas, a doctrine that opposes our desires, it is
hardly possible to bear. The principles of infidelity may be held in the
fullest harmony with indulged sensuality.
II. Trace
infidelity in its results. Follow the history of the infidel to his ultimate
manifestation. That sooner or later he will be revealed is what we are
warranted to assume. In one or other of the following ways is his folly
revealed.
1. By voluntary confession on his acceptance of the Saviour.
2. By the despair which must follow the rejection of this salvation.
3. By the degrading superstitions to which the infidel is constrained
to apply.
II. What judgment
ought to be formed of such a system of principles?
1. Of its wisdom. Intellect is the boast of infidels.
2. Of its practical influence. The interests of society are concerned
here.
3. What is infidelity with respect to its ultimate comfort?
That is no religion for man which does not afford consolation. (James
Simpson.)
Seamen in storms
I. The mighty
agency of God. The wind is a strange power in nature. The fact that storms are
under Divine direction should--
1. Rouse us to consider them as God’s voice.
2. Lead us to submit to the catastrophes they produce.
II. The natural
instincts of man. These men developed--
1. The dread of death.
2. Faith in prayer. Their prayer involved--
III. The strange
vicariousness of suffering. The storm came on as a consequence of the sin of
Jonah. The innocent suffer for the guilty the world over. The principle of
vicarious suffering is a principle developed in the experience of all. We
suffer for others, and others have suffered for us. A man may deny the justice
of vicarious suffering, but he cannot deny the fact. The sufferings of mariners
are strikingly vicarious. Let shipwrecks remind us--
1. To put our confidence in God.
2. Of our moral condition.
3. Of our duty to pray for our brethren on the sea. (Homilist.)
They cast forth the wares
that were in the ship into the sea.
The unavailing sacrifice
Whatever sacrifices the sinner in the hour of trial may be
disposed to make, nothing can avail him so long as unpardoned sin remains
concealed in the heart.
I. There are
important sacrifices which, in the hour of trial, the awakened sinner will
make.
1. The awakened sinner may abandon, in the hopes of relief, his
worldly companions. These were his treasure.
2. Conviction may even constrain the sacrifice of the most endeared
and of the most inveterate habits of sin,
3. He sacrifices his prejudices.
4. He sacrifices his personal ease.
5. He will even sacrifice his worldly substance.
II. Sacrifices so
presented can never be accepted of God. They have no intrinsic value;--they are
involuntary--unseasonable--selfish--unauthorised--unbelieving--and unholy. Such
sacrifices may be made while sin remains safely concealed in the soul. Two
things are requisite in order to our intercourse with God. Not only must
iniquity be pardoned, but it must also be destroyed as to the influence which
it exerts on the heart. By that method of salvation which the Scripture
reveals, holiness is effectually secured. (James Simpson.)
So the shipmaster came to him.
A model sea-captain
The shipmaster was a good workman. The spirit and manner in which
he went about his work deserve our imitation. He was intensely in earnest. At
any risk he wished to arouse this slumbering passenger to a sense of duty.
Death was staring them in the face, and he was anxious that every person on
board should be doing something to assist the ship, or to save his life. Seek
to imitate--
I. His earnest
solicitude. When we remember that millions of our fellow-men are actually
slumbering on the very verge of perdition, the first desire of every Christian
heart should be to awaken them out of sleep. The conversion of men to God is
the ultimate and immediate aim of all truly Christian effort. If we fail in
this we fail altogether. This is the spirit of the age. In business, politics,
and science, men may be as fanatical as they please, and society will applaud
their zeal; while in any undertaking which is strictly Christian and spiritual,
an ordinary amount of earnestness will not be tolerated.
II. His rational
appeal. “What meanest thou, O sleeper?” Give us a reason for this strange
conduct. This inquiry is equally appropriate and rational as applied to
unconverted men. In reference to a matter of such importance we cannot do
rational men the injustice to suppose that this subject has not received their
most earnest attention. The fact may be, that though there is so much nominal
belief in the world, there is also, even amongst ordinary Gospel hearers, a
wide spread spirit of scepticism.
III. His simple
exhortation. “Arise, and call upon thy God.” Straightforward, honest, manly,
and emphatic, the man came right to the point, and discharged his soul. Such a
man as a Gospel preacher would be sure of success. Let us aim at the heart. Let
our theme be the Gospel. This earnest sea-captain is an example for every
Christian professor. (W. H. Burton.)
The good shipmaster
Jonah behaved at once like a very presumptuous and a very ignorant
man. Jonah’s slumbers were unaffected by the danger, and unbroken by the noise
above and around. The shipmaster, seeing that he was quite unconscious of his
peril, and might probably be engulphed in the yawning abyss below them, before
ever he knew that there was danger, came near and aroused him. The shipmaster
had no very accurate ideas of Jonah’s God, of His character, grace, mercy,
long-suffering, or providence. Yet in the darkness of heathenism he had not
absolutely lost sight of every glimpse of the truth. Amidst all the obscurity
and ignorance in which they were involved many a heathen retained the knowledge
that a power there certainly is that made heaven and earth, and all things
therein;. and that in evils which mock the weakness of human devices, the only
probable road to safety is in appeal to that invisible Being, who certainly has
the power, and may have the will, to save to the uttermost. (W. H. Marriott.)
Men aroused by unexpected means
If Jonah had been told one year before that a heathen sea-captain
would ever awaken him to a sense of danger, he would have scoffed at the idea;
but here it is done. So now, men in strangest ways are aroused from spiritual
stupor. A profane man is brought to conviction by the shocking blasphemy of a
comrade. A man attending chinch, and hearing a sermon from the text, “The ox
knoweth his owner,” etc., goes home unimpressed, but crossing his barn-yard, an
ox comes up and licks his hand, and he says: “There it is now--‘the ox knoweth his
owner, and the ass his master’s crib,’ but I do not know God.” The careless
remark of a teamster has led a man to thoughtfulness and heaven. The child’s
remark, “Father, they have prayers at uncle’s house,--why don’t we have them?”
has brought salvation to the dwelling. (T. De Witt Talmage.)
Remarkable awakenings
By strangest way and in most unexpected manner men are awakened.
The gardener of the Countess of Huntingdon was convicted of sin by hearing the
countess on the opposite side of the wall talk about Jesus. John Hardoak was
aroused by a dream, in which he saw the last day, and the Judge sitting, and
heard his own name called with terrible emphasis--“John Hardoak, come to
judgment!” The Lord has a thousand ways of waking up Jonah. (T. De Witt
Talmage.)
Man’s interest in God
To the end the Lord may discover the guilty man, and cause of this
tempest, as he made the mariners sensible themselves, so the shipmaster is set
on work to awaken Jonah, to try his interest with his God (whom they knew not
yet to be the true God), if possibly He had more power or goodwill to such as
worshipped Him than theirs had. Which is the first step to His discovery.
Doctrine--
1. A child of God may sometimes miscarry, so far through infirmity,
negligence, and temptation, that even a pagan, by nature’s light, may see him
reproveable and blameworthy, for so is Jonah reproved by the shipmaster.
2. It is deeply censurable and absurd, even to nature’s eye, to be
secure in trouble.
3. Variety of false gods hold men in suspense and uncertainty.
Therefore every “man having cried unto his God,” yet they are not settled, but
will have Jonah to essay his God, if He be better than the rest.
4. Nature’s light will acknowledge that He who is the true God hath
power to deliver in most extreme dangers; for in this great tempest they assert
it,--“If God think on us, we will not perish.”
5. Howsoever in a calm day, nature conceit and boast of merit, yet in
a strait, natural men are forced to have their recourse only to the favour of
God. For this pagan shipmaster hath no ground of hope that they shall not
perish, but in God’s thinking (or being bright and shining, as the word also
signifies, that is, looking favourably) on them. (George Hutcheson.)
Arise, call upon thy God.
Asleep in sin
These were the words of the shipmaster to Jonah, and they
present to us the strange anomaly of the reckless seaman upbraiding with
impiety the prophet of the Lord. Jonah could not at that hour have possessed a
conscience void of offence. At that time he was flying in the face of God,
disobeying His Word, betraying His trust, and he could not have thought of Him
without dread. He could not have dared to bend the knee to Him in prayer
without conscience flying, like a scorpion, in his face. Was it the conflict of
his feelings which overpowered him, and nature sunk exhausted under the
dreadful struggle? Or was it that Jonah had succeeded in silencing the
remonstrances of conscience? Only by way of accommodation can this passage be
improved.
1. Apply it to the careless and ungodly. Thousands are rushing onward
in the broad way which leadeth to destruction. Many a man, in the midst of the
most awful realities of life, is locked up in fancied security, and not a pang,
not a misgiving, not an apprehension is entertained. Well may it be said to
such, “Awaken, thou that sleepest.”
2. Apply to the backslider. Those who once knew the Lord, and who,
remembering the blessedness of knowing Him, have nevertheless fallen from their
stead fastness; who, by sin, have inflicted a deadly wound upon their souls.
They may be, like Jonah, sleeping, insensible to the perils around them. But
the words admit of a more extended application. They come, in a greater or less
degree, pointed to us all. It seems to say to us all, “watch and pray, arise
and be doing.” (Dennis Kofly, M. A.)
“Sleeper, arise”
Notice the character of Jonah’s sleep. It could not have been the
sleep of innocence and confidence. Jesus Christ slept in the calm confidence of
a mighty faith which knew that the elements were powerless to injure the Holy
One of God. Jonah slept to escape from himself. He had already fled from the
presence of God, but he could not escape from the sound of God’s voice in his
conscience. May we not see in this sleep of Jonah a type of the condition of
many souls? As with him, so with us. God has given us a work to do for Him. But
the work grows distasteful; so we gradually slacken our efforts, and perhaps at
last abandon them altogether; and then try to escape from the presence of the Lord
We lull ourselves more effectually to sleep by the expressed intention of
making our peace with God at some far distant time, when we are less distracted
by the world’s claims upon us. But what are such intentions save as the dreams
of an unhealthy sleep? Every landmark of our lives which tells us that another
stage is reached, and our journey is so much nearer the close, is in point of
fact as the voice of that heathen sailor who roused the sleeping prophet. It is
no new or striking thing to say, that the time and manner of your death
is uncertain. We need to take homo to ourselves the common-places of religion
before we can actually realise them. How can we dare to continue to live in
such a state as we dare not die in? (F. R. H. H. Noyes, D. D.)
The sleeper called to awake
The prophet, jealous, as some think, for the honour of Israel, and
unwilling that the Gentiles should partake of the benefits of prophecy; or
fearing that, as others imagine, notwithstanding all the denunciations he might
utter against them, the merciful God might still spare them, and thus tarnish
the veracity of his predictions,--subjecting him, moreover, to the ignominy of
being despised and punished as an impostor; or apprehensive, as is the opinion
of a third class, of the perils to which this journey and message were likely
to expose him, refused obedience to God’s authority. What could the prophet
mean by attempting to flee from the presence of the Lord? Possibly Jonah
thought that by removing from Judea the special place of Divine revelations, he
would remove from that presence of the Deity which was peculiar to it. During
his passage he does not appear to have thought of the folly or sinfulness of
his conduct. He fell fast asleep. Did not this splenetic seer know that it is in
vain for a man to contend with his Maker?
1. It must be obvious to every one that this impassioned inquiry into
the conduct of the sleeper speaks it to be fraught with extreme folly. Man is
placed under the regimen of a moral and an equitable administration, in which
God deals with him as a rational creature. A door of hope is set before us. The
awful consequences of refusing to accept God’s mode of deliverance are fully
displayed. Now, does the sleeper act the part of a wise man; to remain locked
in the embraces of a most sluggish inaction, when affairs of such moment are to
be decided? Surely no frenzy is half so desperate as this! The sleeper’s
conduct is fraught with extreme folly.
2. This awakening salutation intimates that the sleeper’s conduct is
full of danger. See the appalling and perilous position of this ship. Far more
appalling and perilous is your condition, O ye spiritual slumberers. You are
embarked on the ocean of Divine wrath. The vessel to which you have committed
yourselves is frail and shattered, yet an ark of safety has all along attended
you, but you will not be at the trouble of accepting its aid. By neglecting the
great salvation, your peril is increased a thousand-fold. Jonah’s condition in
the ship gives but a faint idea of the danger you every moment run while
without Christ, and “without God in the world.”
3. The earnestness of the interrogatory imports that now is the
proper time to awake. It should be a rule with every man who wishes to regulate
his conduct wisely, to put off nothing till to-morrow which is necessary to be
done to-day. The present time is always the best, and, what is more, it is all
that we can call our own. The circumstances of this case demand that you decide
instantly.
4. The vehemence of this call tells us, that the business for which
the sleeper is called to awake is of the utmost importance, and well deserves
his attention. Inconceivably greater than Jonah’s is the business to which we
now solicit your attention. By nature you are lost and undone; but we now
announce to you a message of peace and reconciliation with God. We tell you of
a Saviour. Will you, through the pride of your heart, banish from your mind
that deep and mysterious project? Will you, through the listlessness of your
inaction, discard, as not deserving your serious contemplation, that unrivalled
event which filled the world with wonders?
5. The question here put to the sleeper may also be viewed as the
language of reproof and astonishment. These sailors were heathen, yet in time
of strain they called on their God. The one man who professed to fear the God
of heaven remains fast asleep, makes no attempt to call upon his God. (W.
Nisbet.)
The sleeper awakened
Like all who endeavour to frustrate the designs, evade the
commands, or flee from the presence of God, Jonah found his hopes miserably
disappointed. The address of the shipmaster to the slumbering prophet is
equally applicable to those who are yet in their unregenerate state.
1. Like the prophet, you are exposed to the storm of Divine wrath,
which every moment pursues and threatens to overwhelm you.
2. The inspired writers employ various figurative expressions to
describe the situation and character of impenitent sinners. Persons of this
description are represented sometimes as foolish, mad, or infatuated; sometimes
as blind and senseless; sometimes as dead in trespasses and sins; and sometimes
as slumbering or asleep.
Apply to unawakened sinners, and then to those whom God has been
pleased to awaken. (E. Payson, D. D.)
The sleeper aroused
The circumstances connected with this message of the prophet are
very striking. We may trace a parallel between those circumstances and man as
we now find him. Every man, from the least to the greatest, is charged with a
mission from God; every man comes into the world charged with this one great
business, the bringing glory to God; and every man who goes forth, in the
exercise of the faculties which God has given him, influenced and regulated by
Almighty grace, fulfils his mission. But the greater part of mankind shrink
from it; they flee (as it were) from the presence of the Lord; they go forth
from the round of duty in which He places them, and seek to escape. Every soul
who is not fulfilling his mission will sooner or later be convinced how fearful
a thing it is, as well as vain, to seek to depart from God, and to neglect the
one great business of life. The subject suggests one aspect of the unconverted
man,--he is in a state of deep sleep. All his faculties whereby he might
glorify God are inactive, or if employed at all, are employed unwisely and
unfitly. He slumbers in sinful indulgence. There is an absorbing power in this;
it holds the heart fast, it subdues the whole being, and brings it into entire
subjection. He slumbers in spiritual feeling. What should be done in this case?
Two things. “Arise.” “Call upon thy God.” To every slumberer in sinful
indulgence and spiritual ignorance we say, “Arise.” Awaken to serious thought.
Respond to the call of the Divine Spirit. Call upon God with all the lowliness
of humiliation, and in the exercise of a simple faith, of a faith which He will
give, of a faith which is even now tendered. And let me remind you that every
day spent in the dangerous slumber of sinful indulgence and spiritual ignorance
increases the difficulty of your awakening. (George Fisk, LL. D.)
Arousing voice to moral sleepers
Three practical appeals to the morally indifferent are suggested.
I. Jonah was in
imminent peril; so are you. What are the perils of the material shipwreck to
the perils of a corrupt and disobedient soul?
II. Jonah was
unconscious of his peril; so are you. You say to yourself, “Peace, peace, when
there is no peace.” If you were aware of your position, you would give no sleep
to your eyes, no slumber to your eyelids.
1. Jonah’s unconsciousness was foolish; so is yours. How unwise was
the prophet to sleep under such circumstances; he should have been on deck,
alert, all ear and eye, and with hands ready to grapple with the emergencies of
the terrible hour.
2. Jonah’s unconsciousness was wicked; so is yours. For the sake of
his companions on board he ought not to have been fast asleep it indicated a
shameful lack of interest in his fellow-men. Your indifferentism is wicked. You
ought to be spiritually alive and awake, not only for your own sake, but also
for those around you who are in similar peril.
III. Jonah had a
messenger to warn him of his peril; so have you. There are certain points of
analogy between this “shipmaster” and the godly ministers that are warning you.
1. He believed in the existence and power of God; so do they. “Call
upon thy God, if so be that God will think upon us.”
2. He believed in the efficacy of human prayer; so do they. What soul
does not pray when in conscious contact with overwhelming dangers? Your ministers
believe in prayer; they pray for you, and urge you to pray for yourselves.
3. He believed it to be his duty to sound the warning; so do they.
Your ministers have a right to warn you; they are bound to warn you. They are
commanded to “cry aloud, to lift up their voices like a trumpet.” Do you say,
when godly men speak to you about your moral condition, What business have they
to interfere? My soul is my own; if I choose to throw it away, what matters it
to them? It does matter to them. You are not your own, you are not an isolated
unit, you are a member of the spiritual universe; you have therefore no right
to be dishonest, corrupt, ungodly, and throw your soul away. You were made to
serve the universe, not to curse it; you cannot sin without injuring others. (Homilist.)
An alarm to the careless
Observe the goodness and mercy of God. He would not punish without
a warning, and affording opportunity to forsake their sin and turn unto Him.
Jonah was to warn Nineveh, but instead of obeying he fled, hoping to hide
himself from the eye of the Almighty. Consider Jonah as representing the state
of the great bulk of mankind, the state of every unconverted sinner.
I. The
expostulation. “What meanest thou, O sleeper?” Sleep implies a state--
1. Of insensibility. Jonah has no sense and feeling of his desperate
condition. Sinners are dreaming, they are fast asleep.
2. Of insecurity. No one is more defenceless than he who is asleep.
He is exposed to every danger, without anything wherewith to shield him. Just
such is the state of the case with every impenitent sinner.
3. Of inactivity. Notwithstanding all the evils to which Jonah is
exposed, he makes not one effort to escape. He is fast asleep. So is it with
the souls of the unregenerate.
4. Of inability. What can a man that is asleep do to preserve
himself, to save his property, or protect his life? The sinner cannot rescue
himself from danger.
II. The advice.
Open thine eyes, and see thy danger. Look, and behold the remedy. “Call upon
thy God.” Prayer is a haven to a shipwrecked mariner; an anchor to them that
are sinking in the waves; a staff to the limbs that totter; a mine of jewels to
the poor; a security to the rich; a healer of diseases, and a guardian of
health; prayer at once secures the continuance of our blessings, and dissipates
the cloud of our calamities.
III. The.
Encouragement. “If so be that God will think upon us that we perish not.” It
may be that God will hear us. At least we can try. Such was the encouragement
which the shipmaster held out. We can add more to this. Our God can and will
hear and answer prayer. He is “thy God.” Address--
1. The careless sinner.
2. Those who are beginning to awake to a sense of their awful
condition.
3. Those who have complied with the advice given. (Robert Simpson,
M. A.)
The awakening influence of light
A young lady was carried to the hospital of St. Lazare in a sleep
that had continued for a week. All the chemical and medical appliances had been
used, and yet she slumbered. There was an expert among these French doctors that
awoke her. The last resource! On the cones of the eyes that have dropped into
insensibility is light. He focussed into the eyeball of the sleeper the rays of
the sun. Hardly had the concentrated ray touched the eyeball when she awoke. Is
it in sight of this physical principle that Paul uttered without knowing it, or
is it not a marvellous testimony to God’s Holy Spirit and His guiding when he
says that the last resource for the slumber, even of death, is Christ’s light,?
When Christ shines into your soul you can’t slumber. (John Robertson.)
A troublesome cabin passenger
I know a shoal upon which I have seen several vessels come
to ruin, but upon which I have never seen the remains of any two ships at the
same time. It has been remarked that as long as the mast of a sunken wreck was
to be seen above the water, another vessel was never known to strike on that
bank. But it is seldom that that place is without its mournful beacon. As one
ship thus becomes a beacon to another, so, in the voyage of life, one man’s
faults and failings should become warnings to all the rest. God has given us
many such beacons by the way; for the very fails and weaknesses of His people
are made to subserve our highest good. The rock of disobedience, upon which
Jonah split, is one of the most dangerous. Some who have grounded thus have
managed to get off again into deep water, but it has always done them permanent
injury, and has maimed them for the rest of the voyage. Jonah never did much
after this misfortune. We see in Jonah a type of many round us, both in the
Church and in the world.
I. Indolence in
the midst of activity. “He lay.” Ease--rest--to be down in the sides of the
ship, fast asleep in the bunks of formality and carnal ease, is the fullest
realisation of the ordinary professor’s dreams. Respectable Jonahs are the
curse of our churches.
II. Unconcern in
the midst of danger. Men sleep on the very verge of eternal ruin. How is it
possible to describe the sad condition of those who “will not” be aroused by
all the Gospel admonitions which from time to time they hear?
III. Detection in
the midst of flight. Jonah little dreamed, when he was fleeing from the
presence of the Lord, that the Lord was marking his every step. God knows us
through all our disguises. We must all “appear before the judgment-seat of
Christ,” and He who is to be your Judge has watched all your doings right
throughout. (W. H. Burton.)
Of the dispositions becoming men in the times of very threatening
and impending danger
1. That apprehensions of the displeasure and vengeance of God, on
account of sin, are apt to arise in all ingenuous minds in times of very
threatening and impending danger.
2. That notwithstanding there is a just foundation laid in the human
mind, for apprehensions of this sort, in a state of distress, or great danger,
yet many of those who are most criminal and guilty are, in such a situation,
quite unaffected and secure.
3. That a sense of the displeasure of God, manifested in present or
apparently approaching calamities, would naturally excite and urge men to
devotion, humiliation, and repentance. (J. Orr, D. D.)
The history of Jonah
Jonah is justly no favourite with us, though conspicuously
a prophet of the Lord. Hardly one prophet’s name is pronounced with so little
respect. He was a real saint, with too much of the remaining elements of a
sinner. His conduct on receiving his commission does appear very strange. We
must accept his own explanation, given in chapter 4., which seems to amount to
this,--he felt in danger of being disgraced as a prophet, the denunciation
being to be uttered in positive, not conditional, terms. How abominably
considerations of self may interfere with obedience to God! The purpose of his
voyage betrays a most unworthy conception of the Divine Being, whatever was exactly
the prophet’s notion. He may have been under the influence of a notion, that
God maintained a peculiar jurisdiction over Judea, and a less absolute one
beyond; though he knew that it must extend, with awful authority at least to
Nineveh. He may have thought that, if he went far enough away, God would do
without him, and appoint some other agent. He slept, but it is not wise to
sleep in guilt. The God that is disobeyed on land can make the sea avenge Him.
There is no situation more pitiable than that of a religious man who has
disabled himself to take the benefit of his religion. Jonah’s associates had
various gods, but they could all pray earnestly to their objects of adoration.
He could not; he who knew the real Lord of the land and the ocean. There must
soon have been manifested some peculiarity of circumstances in the storm,
indicating that it was of a nature extraordinary and judicial. The mariners
referred it to the avenging power to point out the criminal by “casting lots.”
There follows the decision of the lot, a Series of questions and
expostulations. Jonah’s answers were perfectly explicit. The honesty he showed
made the mariners think it best to inquire of himself what they should do to
him. His ready, explicit answer and self-devotement, no doubt, made them much
more reluctant to do what he directed them, it would strike them as generous
and heroic. They rowed hard. But the necessity became imperative at length.
Jonah was sacrificed, but he was a willing sacrifice. Think of the prophet in
his living tomb. The “belly of hell,” that is, the grave. Short of death, is it
possible to conceive so strange a transition of state and feelings? By degrees
the amazing fact that he did really live, and continue to live, would bring him
to the distinct sense of a miraculous and protective Providence over him. Every
moment would add strength to his impression of the Divine presence, and he came
at length to a state of thought and faith and hope capable of prayer. What is
given as the prophet’s prayer is doubtless the brief recollection, afterwards
recorded’ of the kind of thoughts which had filled his mind during his dark
sojourn, with the addition of some pious and grateful sentiments caused by the
review. The final result of these mental exercises no doubt was a full consent
of his will, that He who had sent him hither should send him anywhere else He
pleased, even to Nineveh. Our Lord declares all this to be a type of Him. We
may trace the analogy in the being consigned to the deep, and to the grave, in
order that others might be saved;--the duration of time the same in the dark
retirement;--the coming to light and life again, for the reformation of
mankind. (Hercules was fabled to have had the same three days in a fish.) We
follow Jonah to Nineveh, and there leave him, It does not appear that he showed
any “signs and wonders.” There was a speedy humiliation and repentance, to
which God graciously responded, but at which Jonah was angry. (John Foster.)
The sleep of Jonah, and the sleep of Christ
(taken with Matthew 8:24):--Our Lord has taught us to associate His
name with that of Jonah. Christ taught us how to find high teachings in that
which is outwardly mean and insignificant. We may be permitted to observe an
incidental resemblance between them, which appears to be fruitful of
suggestion. There is a study for us here, in this sleep of Jonah and this sleep
of Christ.
1. The physical conditions of human life are the same in all
cases,--in the case of the good and of the bad. There is one law which makes
sleep a necessity for all. In both these cases the immediate cause of sleep was
bodily weariness and exhaustion. One had toiled in glad fulfilment of a
ministry of love and sorrow; the other had angrily refused to obey the voice of
the Lord. But both slept. Thus we see the check which the universal and
mysterious law of sleep puts upon every form of human activity. This limitation
of bodily energy puts its restraint on human wickedness. It enforces a
perpetually recurring pause in the activities of the sinful, the thoughtless,
the worldly. But
we sometimes cry that the activities of the noble and the good should thus be
stopped. Alas! that these must lay aside so often and so soon their toils, their
consecrated tasks, their questionings, their search for truth. In
discouragement and distress the Christian man at times longs for some exemption
from the general law. But we may take heart again when we see Christ asleep. He
sleeps, and His work stands still.
2. There are instances of peril in which physical causes conduce to
the absence of alarm, both in the case of good men and bad. Jonah, fast asleep,
was as untroubled by the threatening fury of the storm as Christ Himself.
Sometimes the vigour and robustness of a man’s bodily constitution contribute
largely to indifference to dangers, which, if he regarded them, might fill him
with dismay. Here is a physical cause largely helping to make a man altogether
indifferent to the awful peril of irreligion. Often, when the time to die
comes, the avenues of the soul seem to close up; the powers of expression fail;
the whole man sinks into a lethargy and unconsciousness, in which he finally
passes away. It is so with the good and bad, the prepared and unprepared.
3. This sleep of Jonah and sleep of Christ are indicative of two
widely different spiritual conditions and processes issuing in strikingly
similar results. We do not wonder that Christ should calmly resign Himself to
sleep without apprehension or consciousness of peril. He knew that He was in
the Father’s hands. But how could Jonah sleep, whatever his weariness, in the
very act of such unfaithfulness to God? In both instances the spiritual
condition may have contributed to the soundness of the sleep and the
consequent unconsciousness of danger. With what thought Jonah went to sleep we
are not told. In proportion to the success which Jonah had in quieting
conscience would be the ease with which he would drop off to sleep and the
probable soundness of his slumber. There was no uneasiness at the heart of
Christ, and so He
slept. There was not uneasiness enough at the heart of Jonah to keep him awake,
and so he slept also. Misery comes to men in gusts; it is not the permanent
condition of life’s atmosphere to any one. If a man refuse to be a Christian it
by no means follows that he will live in a state of perpetual excitement and
alarm. We almost wonder how it is that God lets men thus sleep on. It is not
God’s plan to compel men to His service. He never so speaks that we may not
refuse to answer. He never so compels us to attend that we may not settle
ourselves to sleep again. But
the time of awaking comes. In most Christian congregations it may be there are
some who are suffering from the pangs of an awakened conscience. For such
Christ waits with infinite compassion and concern. But the probability is that
the condition of the majority of those who habitually listen to Christian
preaching is like that of the ten virgins, of whom Christ speaks in His parable.
“While the bridegroom tarried, they all slumbered and slept.” We slumber and
sleep. Is it because we are finding our rest in reconciliation with God, or
because we have dismissed the thought of God, and comforted ourselves with an
opiate? (Thomas Stephenson.)
Call upon thy God.--
Terrors of conscience
1. How natural it is to mankind to fly to God and to call upon Him in
seasons of distress. If nature, dark and doubtful, and trembling with a sense
of guilt, can yet fly to the Almighty and call upon Him, shall we, who are
enlightened by grace, be careless and indifferent about this high privilege of
drawing near to God in prayer? Shall we, as long as we can find any earthly
satisfaction and enjoyment, give them the preference to God; think much of
them, and little or never of Him? Who that has a real concern for his own
welfare and happiness will not perpetually call upon God?
2. The folly of contending with God. He sent the prophet one way; but
because this prophet liked not the errand that he was charged with, he
endeavoured to go quite a contrary way. The folly of such an attempt we are all
ready to acknowledge; but are all, who would not hesitate or doubt to pass
sentence upon Jonah, free from this very folly? Jonah disobeyed an express
order of God; and in doing so somehow satisfied himself that an all-discerning
Eye would not see perverseness in him, nor an almighty Hand reach him in his
flight. Do not thousands practise the same deceit upon themselves?
3. Conscience hath its power and authority and terrors derived from
God; with which it will surround the sinner in the day of trouble, forcing him
to confess and acknowledge his guilt.
4. These terrors of conscience, if they seize the sinner in due time,
are most blessed and desirable. For the most unhappy of all conditions is
security in sin, without any feeling or apprehensions of danger from it. But an
humble and contrite heart, confessing its unworthiness, bewailing its sins,
fully sensible of its own inability to rid itself of this burden, is in the fit
and only fit disposition to return to God: such a soul is not far from salvation. 5,
The Almighty, who bringeth good out of evil, ordained that Jonah should set
forth a type or sign of the burial and resurrection of Christ. (T. Townson,
D. D.)
Natural religion--its strength and weakness
The pilot not only rebuked the prophet, he had a proposal to make
to him. “Arise, call upon thy God.” And he backs his proposal by a reason, a
motive, an expectation of benefit. “If so be that God will think upon us, that
we perish not.” All this, as coming from a heathen, is peculiarly instructive.
The two great truths conveyed are these.
1. That in man’s inmost nature, originally and radically, there are
certain principles of religion most strong and ineradicable.
2. That these, without the guidance of revelation and faith, are altogether
insufficient as guides in his real relation to God. Man’s natural helplessness,
and his natural conscience, necessarily imply a capacity for religion and a
certain religiousness, appertaining, of necessity, to human nature, and
developed, in peculiar strength, even in heathen worship. In the progress of
modern civilisation man may emancipate himself from the solemn awe with which
the heathen contemplate the powers of nature, but if he rise not to a holy
veneration of the one Supreme Author of nature, as a revealed and reconciled
God, it is very questionable whether he does not become in some respects a more
shallow and trifling being than the worshipper of idols. We might very easily
maintain and prove the assertion, that godless men, in the days and in the
state of society in which we live, are more thoroughly irreligious than the
heathen are: that
covetousness, which is idolatry, is more contemptible than the worship of
stocks and stones. Two facts conspire to make man naturally and necessarily a
religious being.
1. His observation of the powers of nature.
2. His experience of the powers of conscience.
I. What can
natural religion do for us? What is it that reason, unenlightened by the Word
and Spirit of God, can do towards furnishing man with a religion?
1. It may tell us that there is a God, that God is one. The existence
and the unity of God may be proved by reason. These heathen mariners had many
gods. Jonah, they took for granted, would have a God too. The whole herd of
inferior deities whom the heathen worshipped were only so many sectional
representatives of a portion of the powers believed to reside in a God, to whom
might fairly be given, even by reason, the lofty designation, “God over all.”
The wisdom, power, and goodness which man sees to be requisite for creating,
preserving, and controlling the visible universe, are felt to be unbounded,
infinite. One such Infinite Being is felt to be necessary to account for things
as they are. But not more than one is felt to be necessary. Indeed, more than
one such Infinite Being, possessing all knowledge and power, is felt to be
impossible. The same result follows from our connection with the moral world.
Conscience tells of a Ruler and Judge, but only of one.
2. Reason, fairly interpreted, assures us that this God is a Being
capable of intercourse with His creatures. The creation of an intelligent Being
is manifestly the work of a Being who Himself is intelligent. Hence reason
itself demonstrates the possibility of a revelation from God, and of the
possibility and efficacy of prayer.
II. Reason’s limit,
and reason’s weakness.
1. Reason knows that God exists, but it does not know God. We need
revelation to make us acquainted with Him. You never really know any person
merely by discovering his intellectual or scientific abilities. You never do
know a neighbour save by knowing his moral character and his heart.
2. Reason tells us that prayer is possible, yea reasonable, but
revelation alone puts us in possession of the terms on which God actually hears
prayer,--puts us in a condition actually to pray. Reason, therefore, without
revelation, is sure fatally to err; and whether in ancient paganisms or in
modern rationalisms, which are heathenisms, or in popery, or in nominal, formal
Christianity, the error at bottom is identically one and the same. (Hugh
Martin, M. A.)
Let us cast lots, that we may know for whose cause this evil is
upon us.
Conditions to be observed in casting lots
1. We must never fall to lottery but when necessity enforceth us: all other lawful
means must be first assayed.
2. We must use great reverence and religiousness in the action. Holy
things must be done in a holy manner.
3. We must avoid impiety and idolatry therein, ascribing the event of
our wishes neither to the stars nor to any other celestial body, which cannot
want the ingestion and intermeddling of devils.
4. We must not apply the oracles of God in His sacred Scriptures to
our earthly, temporary, and transitory losses.
5. The ends of our lots must be respected; the honour of God, as the moderator of all such
ambiguities; the furnishing of His Church, if two or more be fit, with the fitter;
the preserving of justice; the avoidance of greater mischiefs.
6. We must eschew all fraud and deceit in permitting our causes to
heavenly arbitrament. (Bishop John King.)
The lot
In the proposal of the sailors, though superstition seems to have
dictated it, I perceive an implied recognition of the agency of God in the
storm. They considered their present distress as a visitation from God. And in
this they judged truly. Storms do take place under the direction of Divine
providence. I perceive, further, the operation of natural conscience in these
heathen men; for they believe not only that it was God who sent the storm, but
that the storm was the evident token of His displeasure on account of sin. Sin
indeed is the great
cause of all the evils with which mankind are afflicted. The conscience of the
sinner may at other times be lulled into a false peace, but the pressure of
great calamity, or the fear of its approach, rouses it from its slumber. In
this case, the conscience of these heathen, though not enlightened by
revelation, accused them. There is, however, no direct evidence that these
mariners were impressed, severally, each with a conviction of his own sins in
particular. Every man looked away from himself, as if he were blameless, and
turned his thoughts towards some other of the company as the guilty cause of
the storm which threatened their destruction. Besides, they were ill-informed
respecting the administration of Divine providence towards sinners in this
present world. They seem to have thought that the sufferings which befall men
in this life are in exact proportion to the measure of their iniquities. This
was the error of Job’s friends. The sailors considered the storm as a special
visitation inflicted because of some more than ordinarily aggravated
transgression, committed by some unknown individual among them. So they
appealed to God by lot, in order to discover the Guilty person. The whole
business of the sailors casting lots must be ascribed to their ignorance and
superstition. We should err were we to judge of the lawfulness or unlawfulness
of actions merely by their event; and God is often pleased to employ for His
purposes the ignorance and folly of men. (James Peddie, D. D.)
And the lot fell upon
Jonah.
Finding the guilty one
God will certainly find out the Jonah that causeth the
storm. The guilty person shall not always go undiscovered.
I. Persons under
guilt may go a long time undiscovered. Some men’s hidden works of darkness are
sooner brought to light than others.
II. Some men’s sins
are not discovered until they come to the great reckoning, the great audit day.
“Some men’s sins are open beforehand to judgment, and some men they follow
after.” Then the hidden things of darkness that escape discovery now will all
be brought to light; and what if you he hid here, this will but harden you: whereas a discovery
might be a means to awaken you and bring you to repentance.
III. Some men’s
guilt comes under more dreadful aggravations than others. Ordinarily, the more
aggravations that men’s sins are clothed with, the sooner will God lay them
open to a discovery.
IV. Upon their
discovery they either grow worse and are hardened, or they are deeply humbled.
Jonah, upon his dis covery, acknowledges and accepts the punishment of his
iniquity. Now we inquire, What ways and means doth God take for the discovery
of guilty persons?
1. By pursuing them with the terrors of conscience.
2. By sending judgments and afflictions after them.
3. By suffering them to fall into some notorious sin.
4. By giving the guilty person up to some gross and notorious error.
5. By causing the power and authority of the Word to seize upon them
and arrest them.
6. By wonderful providences.
7. By bringing them to heart and con science examination.
By such discovery of guilty persons God gets Himself a name. A
name for His justice, wisdom, omniscience, omnipresence, and also for His Word
and truth. Why will the Lord discover guilt? To bring poor souls to shame, and
so to repentance, and all this while He hath a design of love to the soul in
the discovery. Because He will have some persons made cautions and examples to
others. That the world may know of His displeasure against sin. That the
rottenness of many hearts may appear, and they may no longer go on to deceive
others. (John Ryther.)
The discovery
Let sinners conceal themselves as they may, their
transgressions will sooner or later assuredly discover them.
I. Sin may be long
concealed from the eye of man. There is, indeed, a gracious covering provided
for the sins of believers. There is also a charitable concealment to which in
many instances we are bound; but this regards the transgressions of others. But
there is a covering which is not of God’s Spirit; a concealment by which
sinners are encouraged to “add sin to sin.” This is worn sometimes in the form
of delusion, and then sinners deceive themselves. At other times they wear
their covering in the broad and ostensible form of hypocrisy. Ought every
transgression to be avowed, however secret Were it viewed in relation to God we
should say absolutely that it is hypocrisy to conceal. What are the cases
where, in obedience to the Scripture, we are conscientiously bound to confess
our faults, not only to God, but also in the presence of one another?
1. Such disclosure would be necessary when, in exercise of lawful
authority, the sinner may be regularly called.
2. Disclosure of secret offences is required where, in their
consequences, they may implicate others.
3. The interests of the Divine honour, not unfrequently, may require
it. The honour of Divine grace is by such confession promoted.
II. All sins, even
the most secret, shall be eventually revealed. Sentence against an evil work is
not at all times speedily executed. But delay does not secure final impunity.
As there can be no hiding-place to the impenitent, neither shall any species,
any degree of transgression escape.
III. There are
certain kinds of transgression which the wisdom of the Divine government
reveals, and its justice generally avenges, even in our present state of being.
1. The general characters by which such sins are distinguished.
2. God is in
no want of instruments for the discovery of the concealed transgressor.
3. For what purposes are these discoveries made?
What is thine occupation?
What is thine occupation?
In secular life God intends every man to have an
occupation. So too in the Christian life. The world of sin inquires of the
Church, “What is thine occupation?” A religion that cannot give a valid reason
for existence will and ought to die. God’s calls to duty are all Special calls.
So are His calls to us. What is our response? The Church has been sent into
this world on a special errand, with a special message; but many of her members
are fleeing from duty; many are asleep over a volcano of human hate; are tossed
skyward and hellward by the tumultuous waves of social unrest, every lift of
the wave bearing them further from duty and Divine destiny. The Church should
be a nursery--not a nursery for adults, but for babes. Men and women in the
Church should be nursing fathers and nursing mothers. Then “what is your
occupation?”(F. A. Swart.)
I am a Hebrew, and I fear the Lord.
Jonah’s confession
I. The advantage
of being born and educated in some countries above others. Consider them both
in a natural and in a spiritual sense. Some countries place their inhabitants
under serious disabilities. The conditions are most deplorable when men’s bodies draw the
yoke of slavery, and minds are destitute of common civility, as well as of all
true conceptions concerning God or religion. What then are the natural
advantages into which we are born? And how great are the spiritual advantages?
II. The greatest
happiness men can receive doth arise from their being numbered among those
people who fear the Lord. This happiness is best demonstrated by comparison
with the enjoyments of other people and nations. That this happiness may abide
for ever with us, we are obliged--
1. To keep up a friendly society and correspondence with all men.
2. We are more particularly engaged to love and help one another, as
fellow-countrymen. (John Hartcliffe, M. A.)
The confession and its sequel
Here is Jonah at the bar of inquiry. Conscience brings every man
there. There is a present judgment-seat as well as a future. Observe--
1. The interrogators. Heathen sailors.
2. The prisoner at the bar. A prophet of Israel. A degrading position
to be in.
3. The investigation. It was kind, considerate, circumstantial.
The verse 9 sets forth the elicited confession., Confession is a
relief, a necessity, and a Divine condition of forgiveness: Here it was
ingenious, contrite, humiliating, God-honouring. Verse 10 suggests that God’s
terribleness, as seen in His judgments on sin, inspires the greatest terror.
This prompts to earnest inquiry. Verses 11-15 set forth the humanity of the
jeopardised heathen crew and the self-sentencing of Jonah. Their conduct shows
great caution, tenderness, sympathy, moral change. There was earnest prayer;
reluctance to touch God’s anointed; recognition of the Divine Sovereignty. The
self-sentencing of Jonah was the result of conscious demerit. Learn--
1. That no sinner visited with Divine judgments is justified in
taking his own life.
2. When God intends to execute judgments.
3. That in executing sentence against transgressors we should be
certified it is in harmony with the will of God. Verse 16 indicates the moral
effects of the whole phenomena on the sailors. They feared, sacrificed, vowed.
Verse 17 sets forth justice attempered by mercy through miracle.
Learn that--
1. Irrational creatures, as well as inanimate creation, are subject
to Divine control.
2. That we may alight on the mercy of God at the most unexpected hour
and in the most unlikely place.
3. That partial deliverance is Divinely intended to exercise and
develop faith.
4. That salvation shall be wrought for the penitent if it necessitate
a departure from the ordinary course of things. (J. O. Keen, D. D.)
I know that for my sake this great tempest is upon you.
Intelligible providences
It is certain that in all general adversities God has some purpose
to accomplish with all those that suffer. But it is no less true that
individual persons may be particularly aimed at. A few years ago the great
steamship Austria, crowded with emigrants, was burned far out at sea,
and only a few of the passengers were saved. Of these some after wards
published reports of the terrible event. One thrilling narrative was from the
pen of a young man who had sunk very low in debauchery, frivolity, and scorn of
all higher things. And this is what he said of himself: “I do not understand the ways of the
Eternal; but I do know this, that it needed a terrible catastrophe to awaken me
from my deathlike sleep. Nothing less than such awful event would have driven
me from the path of ruin; and in the midst of all the frightful agony of the
scene, an inward voice seemed to say to me, ‘This is all for your sake, that
your soul may be dragged from destruction.’” So also a Prussian musketeer who
on the battlefield of Sadowa had both his legs shot off, said to me, “I can never reveal my sins
to any human being; but believe me, that only in that way could I be plucked as
a brand from the burning. As far as I am concerned, I know why the war had to
come.” (Pastor Funcke.)
The penitence of the prophet of Gath-hepher
This is the first clear indication of a return on the part of the
prophet to a proper state of feeling. His confession did not necessarily imply
this.
I. The request of
Jonah. “Take me up, and cast me forth into the sea.” These words imply--
1. A conviction of the folly of attempting to resist God’s will. It
may be said that this none will dispute. In words, indeed, many may admit this,
but in their practice they contradict it. Every disobedient sinner imagines
that he can secure his happiness not only independently of God, but in
opposition to what He hath revealed or what He can do.
2. An expression of his readiness to endure the chastisement due to
his transgression. It is one thing to acknowledge our guilt and desert of
punishment, and another practically to acquiesce in that punishment when it is
about to be
inflicted. It is a much more difficult thing, and much more indicative of true
penitence, patiently to bear affliction than actively to perform duty. Jonah
pronounces on himself the appalling sentence, that he should be cast into the
sea.
3. An expression of his readiness to submit, not only as respected
the matter of the punishment, but the manner of it. Though Jonah passed
sentence on himself, he did not propose that he should himself carry it into
effect. Self-destruction is in no case justifiable.
4. The expression of his satisfaction that the innocent should
escape, though he might suffer.
II. The conduct of
the mariners. It might have been expected that they would follow Jonah’s
advice. They did not at once. Notice--
1. The benevolence of their exertions.
2. The inefficacy of their exertions.
Learn the obstructions which sin presents to our efforts for the
good of others. (R. Brodie, A. M.)
Settling the storm
Trace an analogy between the experience of these ancient mariners
and that of those who are “led by the Spirit of God” to accept salvation
through the death of Christ. “Then the men feared the Lord exceedingly, and
offered a sacrifice unto the Lord, and made vows.” It will be interesting to
trace the steps by which this consummation was reached.
I. True spiritual
religion is divine in its origin. Some of us began life very much as these
sailors commenced their voyage. Every prospect seemed bright. So easily we
persuaded ourselves to rest. Jonah learned in the belly of the fish that
“salvation is of the Lord.” This at a stroke removes--
1. Inherent goodness.
2. Inherited grace.
3. Imparted sanctity.
As this spiritual religion is Divine in its origin, so it is--
II. irresistible in
its operation. When God said, “Let light be!” light was, and nothing could
resist His decree. And so it is in the new creation. What could these sailors
do against the “mighty tempest” which threatened to dash their ship in pieces?
Men may encase themselves in pride, carnal reason, prejudice, unbelief, but the
Word of God is “quick and powerful.”
III. absolute its
requirements. “Take me up, and cast me forth into the sea.” That was God’s way
of giving calm and rest. See the ways the mariners tried.
1. They began to be religious.
2. They tried to lighten the vessel.
3. They rowed hard to get to land.
“By grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of your selves: it is the gift of
God.” Accept God’s method.
IV. blessed in its results. This is
precisely the way in which God works in grace.
1. Peace through faith.
2. Piety with peace.
3. Profession with piety. (W. H. Burton.)
Jonah’s late
Let us not fail to admire all that was admirable in the conduct of
this heathen crew. A nobler ship’s company was never gathered together. No
human voice cried across the deck of the labouring vessel that the man who
pronounced this sentence upon himself must be taken at his word. With a humane
self-restraint which did them infinite honour the sailors set to work at an attempt
to save themselves without sacrificing their passenger: and it was not until that attempt had
completely and manifestly failed that they reluctantly and reverently consigned
him to the deep.
I. The noble
attempt of the sailors.
1. Notice the toil it involved on behalf of a stranger.
2. The risk to which it exposed them for the sake of one who had
occasioned them loss.
3. It was a noble motive which prompted these men to make this
attempt to save the prophet’s life. They desired to show their sense of Jonah’s
own demeanour in relation to themselves, and to make a suitable response to it.
4. The failure of their attempt by no means detracts from the
nobility of their conduct. It does not follow that they had nothing but their
labour for their pains. They were morally the better for the purpose they had
cherished of saving the prophet, and for the effort they had made to accomplish
their purpose.
II. Consigning
Jonah to the sea. They handled the prophet as tenderly as the circumstances
permitted. Look at the prayer these men offered before they put Jonah into the
sea.
1. The prayer is replete with interest to those who regard it with
attention. It was a prayer addressed to the true God by these heathen for the
first time. It was a very earnest prayer. It was a prayer for their own
preservation. It was a prayer for the prophet.
2. The reply to the prayer. “The sea ceased from her raging.” This
was a miracle. Miracles were signs. This was “a sign that Jonah was indeed a
prophet of the Lord. A sign that Jehovah is the ruler of the sea. And a sign
that God hears and answers prayer. (Samuel Clift Burn.)
Nevertheless the men rowed
hard to bring it to the land.
Hard rowing
The unavailing efforts of these oarsmen have a
counter-part--
1. In the efforts we are making to bring souls to the shore of
safety, and set their feet on the Rock of Ages.
2. In the efforts we are making to bring this world back to God, His
pardon, and safety. If this world could have been saved by human effort, it
would have been saved long ago.
3. In every man that is trying to row his own soul into safety. (T.
De Witt Talmage, D. D.)
And Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days and three
nights.
The crux of the miracle
The real miracle was that Jonah should survive so long in his
strange prison. “That violates the laws of nature.” But let us once understand
Christ’s profound saying about a Father who “worketh hitherto” (John 5:17), that is, who has never taken
His hand from off the thing which He has created, but is ceaselessly active and
operative in His creation. Once let us understand that all force, in the last
reach of our thought, is with force, and that the forces of nature are only the
many-sided puttings forth of that force of the will of God, outspoken and
expressed in that Word of His power by which He upholdeth all things. Once
understand that there are no “laws of nature” to be violated, except the rules
which He has laid down for His own ordinary and orderly action in governing His
world. Once let it be seen that whilst for our sakes it is generally best and
happiest that He should keep to His own rules, and should very seldom indeed do
in any way differently, yet He is at perfect liberty to choose whether He will
keep to His ordinary and orderly plan, or for some special reason will in any
particular instance turn aside. Then, if there is as good evidence for the fact
as the case admits of, and, above all, if plainly there is good reason for the
fact, we may as reasonably fred no more difficulty in the miracle than in the
general providence. What is ordinary is of God, just as much as the
extraordinary. The natural is of God, as much as the supernatural. Once more it
may be said that if our eyes were not too much the eyes of the children, we
should see that the wonder is the orderly, reliable, age-long, ordinary
providence, rather than the special thing, done just once, to meet an emergency
for which the ordinary rule and method did not sufficiently provide. And the
special is not an after-thought. It is provided for in the whole great plan of
the Worker. It is one of His rules. It quite as much needed God to keep Jonah
alive year after year in the atmosphere and upon the earth, as to keep him
alive for three days within the body of the great fish. (H. J. Foster.)
The miracle of the whale
No miracle has been more frequently quoted, or more severely
scrutinised.
I. Establish such
principles as will warrant the fact.
1. There are some things of which even the Divine power is incapable.
Things inconsistent or contradictory cannot be asserted of God.
2. There are other instances in which the Divine power may be easily
supposed to interfere for the suspension or even contradiction of those laws
which God hath given to a material world.
3. Besides these parts of creation with which we are in some measure
acquainted, there are, doubtless, many others of which we remain totally
ignorant. The infinitude of the Divine power is the basis on which this
observation is built.
II. Consider the
particular difficulties with which it has been thought this miracle was
attended.
1. The act of deglutition.
2. The difficulty of respiration in the body of a fish.
3. The impossibility of resisting for so long the digestive powers of
so huge an animal.
III. There were
designs to serve which were worthy of such interposition.
1. It was of important advantage to the prophet.
2. It was of vast importance to the mariners.
3. It was of vast advantage, we may believe, to the people of
Nineveh.
4. It was of the utmost importance if you consider it in its
relations to the promised Messiah.
5. The sign of Jonas is intended for standing use to the Church, to
the end of the world. (James Simpson.)
The miracle of the great fish
Strauss said, “He who will rid the world of priests, must first
rid religion from miracles.” But the Christian religion stands or falls with
the supernatural. A man may believe in a living God who works miracles, and yet
hesitate and recoil at the extraordinary one which is narrated in the history
of Jonah. No one will say that every man who believes that God can work
miracles is bound to accept implicitly every miraculous event described in the
Bible as having really happened, and as being the work of God. Let no one think
that he is not a Christian because he must hesitate about the literal
interpretation of this miracle of the “great fish.” Instead of adopting any
artificial interpretation of this miracle, it would be better to suspend our
judgment, and acknowledge that we cannot come to any conclusion about it. At
any rate there is only the choice between saying that the whole history of
Jonah is a parable, or an allegory, including the preaching in Nineveh, and
saying that every event in it is related as an actual occurrence. To suppose
that Jonah fell into a “mysterious hiding-place” is only to set aside the
biblical miracle, and put another and more wonderful one in its place. We seek
an answer to the general question, whether it is so wonderful a thing to
believe that God works miracles:
or whether, on the contrary, the belief that He must and does do so, is not
founded on the very being of God, and on His relations with men. If we arrive
at that decision, the question of the miracle by which Jonah was saved will be
settled. A God without miracles would be the greatest miracle of all. If we
have not a God who works miracles, we have no living God; and if no
living God who communicates with men, then no God at all. Whoever knows
anything of the living God, cannot possibly think that God has tied His
own hands, once for all, with laws of nature. The rank and privilege of man
demands Divine miracles. God must work for us in extraordinary and exceptional
ways, or we could neither fear nor love Him, and He would soon be indifferent
to us. (Otto Funcke.)
Jonah’s preservation
I. An ordinary
event in the providence of God. It was not a miracle that a large fish should
swallow Jonah. Instances have been known in which sharks have swallowed men.
II. What may be
called a special providence of God. A remarkable coincidence of ordinary
providences leading to some important result we generally regard as a special
providence.
III. We have a
miraculous providence of God. That the prophet should have lived in the fish
was a miracle. And the miracle is the more striking because conscious ness
continued. Learn--
1. That there is no way out of a plain duty except through
chastisement.
2. That the place of prayer can neither add to nor take from the value of
prayer.
3. That the inferior creatures may become instruments of moral
instruction to man.
4. That the fish was honoured by being thus brought into the plan of
God for Jonah’s recovery to the way of duty. Consider--
Jonah in the sea
Mercy and truth, or an innate tendency towards kindness, and an
essential love of rectitude form the most prominent features of the revealed
character of God. A God all mercy would be a God unjust. The demands of justice
were rigorously exacted, and the prophet was hurled into the deep. Why such
severity? Jonah had sinned presumptuously against God, and he must bear the
penalty. In this phase of Jonah’s experience, which we now consider, we find
“mercy rejoicing against judgment.”
I. The prophet’s
imprisonment. Note--
1. The singularity of the mode of imprisonment; the agency of God in
preparing the prophet’s cell. On the supposition that Jonah retained his
consciousness when cast into the mighty deep, it must have been with emotions
of indescribable horror that he saw the jaws of this marine monster expanding
to receive him.
2. The term of Jonah’s captivity. Explain Jewish reckoning “three
days and three nights.”
II. The prophet’s
prayer. Jonah retained his consciousness during the term of his imprisonment.
Evidently we have only the substance of the prophet’s prayer. Note the
evidences which his spiritual exercises furnish of sanctified affliction.
1. The spiritual exercises with which the prophet’s prayer is
identified.
2. The conclusion of unbelief. “I am cast out from Thy sight.”
3. The victory of faith. “Yet will I look again towards Thy holy
temple.”
4. The ardour of Jonah’s gratitude.
5. His emphatic ascription. “Salvation is of the Lord.” Notice the
evidence of spiritual reclamation which the prophet’s prayer supplies. See his
altered feeling towards God:
the rekindling of the spirit of devotion: the vigorous action of faith. In the
expression of his faith Jonah embodied the sentiments of former saints. Jonah
was evidently cured of his folly in flying from God.
III. The prophet’s
deliverance. This was miraculous in its character. Jonah was conveyed back
safely to the Holy Land, and cast upon the dry shore. It was intended to test
the sincerity of the prophet’s penitence, to secure the fulfilment and success
of his errand, and to typify the mission of Christ. (John Broad.)
A restrained fish
The chapter closeth with the narration of Jonah’s
preservation. Though thus pursued by justice in a fish’s belly, where, in a
miraculous way, he was kept three days and three nights. Doctrine.
1. When God is pursuing the rebellion of His children in a most
severe way, yet doth He not altogether cast off His mercy toward them, but out
of the abundance thereof, moderates their affliction: for “the Lord,” pursuing Jonah, “had yet
prepared a great fish to swallow him up.”
2. God’s providence over rules and directs the motions of irrational
creatures and sea monsters, as pleaseth Him. For “ the Lord had prepared a
great fish,” etc., whereas it knew nothing but to range up and down in the sea,
and swallow him as any other prey.
3. God may have a mercy and proof of love waiting upon His people, in
a time and place where it would be least expected; for Jonah meets a mercy in
the heart of a raging sea, into which he is cast in anger, as to be destroyed.
4. Albeit the mercy of God will not destroy His guilty people in
their afflictions; yet His wisdom seeth it not fitting at first totally to
deliver them, but will have their faith exercised.
5. God can, when He seeth fit, preserve His people from ruin in an
incredible and miraculous way. Therefore Jonah is not only swallowed whole by
the fish, not being hurt by its teeth; but is preserved in the belly of the
fish three days and three nights, where he was in hazard of choking for want of
breath, or of being digested by the fish into its own substance. (George
Hutcheson.)
──《The Biblical Illustrator》