Thursday morning (I realize it is now Monday, but it was Thursday morning when I started) and we are continuing with our discussion of God calling people to his service. Last week we saw Paul and Isaiah, two guys who were changed after pretty spectacular encounters with God. This week we are looking at the most resistant prophet of them all.
I’m going to test my psychic powers and presume that you are thinking of our good friend Jonah. If you are then you are on the exact same wavelength that I am.
Jonah here doesn’t just politely decline God’s call to ministry but he flees the scene. Without so much as a see you later he hops on the first boat he can find that is heading as far away from
Of course the very next verse shows us just how well that worked. Don’t worry guys, if you want to run away from God it’s totally easy. He doesn’t know all about you at all. Ya, not so much. The next verse tells us that God created a huge storm that was so tremendous that it threatened the very ship that Jonah was traveling on. So much for that plan! How often do you and I do the same thing? One of the scariest things that I read in the bible is in Matthew 25:36 where Jesus tells us about the things that we are to be doing. One of the items in the list is visiting people who are in prison. This is something that completely terrifies me to the very depths of my soul. You don’t know what these people have done, you don’t know why they’re in there, all you know is that they have done something bad. That’s scary and it’s something that I don’t want to do. I like to ignore this passage and pretend like it doesn’t exist. That’s what I imagine Jonah’s first impression to the call to minister to the Ninevites to be like. All that he had heard was what a bad lot they were. He was scared. He didn’t want to go there and preach a message that could likely get him murdered. But how do you say no to God? He’s got a way with words. As much as Jonah wanted to run away from this task, when God’s got something in his mind, it’s gonna happen.
This passage really amazes me with the way that things happen. And you’re thinking, well, that was descriptive, good job with this bible stuff there. Just hang on though and look a little closer at Jonah 1. So we’ve already talked about the fact that Jonah tried to hide from God and it obviously did not work. But what happens next shows God’s might in a very different way. Of course the way that the people in this time thought is going to be quite different than the way I do, in fact very few people think in the same way I do, thank goodness for them, but for me, when I am in the middle of a huge storm my first thought isn’t necessarily, “Who screwed up so bad as to cause this stupid storm?” This is what happens here though is that everyone starts praying to their gods and trying to determine who is to blame. Jonah is not a dumb guy, despite what some of his decisions might lead you to believe and when confronted he realizes that it was his act of cowardice that led to this storm that is threatening to destroy the ship and all those on board. And he mans up and takes the fall for the stupid decision that he made. He is punished for this with an unplanned voyage into the depths of the sea. Might have been easier to just go to
Just kidding! This is where things start to get fun. So our good friend Jonah is bobbing around in the middle of his watery grave and everyone on board, well, they’re all praising God. If you’re as bright and astute as I’ve been giving you credit for then you’ll have noticed something. There’s a capital-G and it’s singular. Well how about that. Even before Jonah makes his way to
Now Jonah offered himself up to the sea as a sacrifice. It took him a while but 
he realized that he screwed up and needed to pay the price. So when he is in the sea he is assuming that that is it and he’s a goner going deep in the belly of Sheol. Instead he finds himself in the belly of a whale (some more listening material) and somehow rather than thinking that he was going to become whale poop he figures out that this is God’s way of saving him. Of course we can’t talk about Jonah’s salvation during the three days and nights in the cavernous fish’s belly without thinking about a similar tale of salvation that has the same basic premise (See Matthew 12:40-41). Without even realizing it, Jonah was prophesying to the most miraculous even that we would ever see. His actions point us to the path that Jesus took, literally going to the path of Sheol and rising from the dead after 3 days. Through our most reluctant prophet we see the absolute truth in the final verse of his prayer that “Salvation belongs to the LORD.”
As stated previously, Jonah did not want to be a prophet. He didn’t even make up excuses about why he wouldn’t be good at it and how God would be better off looking for someone else to take on this role (teaser alert, look here next week!), he just straight up ran away. Now God didn’t just let Jonah have his way as a sulky underachiever but after letting him think about his decision for a while God once again gave the command to be a prophet to the Ninevites. It’s pretty easy to say no once but to say no twice after just being saved from the craziest storm ever and spending three days in a stinky fish belly, well even I would have been surprised to see him say no.
Jonah says yes and is the best prophet that we’ve ever seen, it’s awesome. Actually, no, he’s a pretty crappy prophet, all things considered. He gets upset at God’s mercy towards the Ninevites, even though he was appreciative of this mercy when it was extended towards him. After all that, even though he was potentially one of the worst prophets ever, God’s will is done. It isn’t through Jonah’s natural charisma and convincing words that the whole city of
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