When you think of the book of Jonah, what immediately comes to mind? Probably the part where he gets swallowed by a whale, right? As amazing as that is, there’s a lot more to this little book than an epic fish story.
The story of Jonah reveals so much about the character of God. We learn about the great extent of God’s mercy and forgiveness – not only toward Jonah, but also toward the Assyrian Empire. We see His justice and righteousness as he sends Jonah to a people to tell them to repent because their wickedness has come up before him. We see God’s authority and power as he creates the storm that eventually causes Jonah to get cast into the sea. And we see his sovereignty as he accomplishes his purposes, even if he has to use a reluctant prophet to do it.
The First Message
God’s calling to Jonah to go and preach a message of repentance in Nineveh wasn’t his first mission. Jonah lived in a time when the nation of Israel had been split into two kingdoms; the northern kingdom of Israel and the southern kingdom of Judah. Jonah lived in the north. The northern kingdom had been led by thirteen consecutive kings that did what was evil in the sight of the Lord, and as a result of their consistent disobedience, they were suffering. God had every right to punish them, but he saw their suffering and was merciful. This is where Jonah first appears in the Bible.
2 Kings 14:25-27 Jeroboam II recovered the territories of Israel between Lebo-hamath and the Dead Sea, just as the LORD, the God of Israel, had promised through Jonah son of Amittai, the prophet from Gath-hepher. For the LORD saw the bitter suffering of everyone in Israel, and that there was no one in Israel, slave or free, to help them. And because the Lord had not said he would blot out the name of Israel completely, he used Jeroboam II, son of Jehoash, to save them.
What a great calling! God told Jonah to go and tell the northern kingdom of Israel that they would regain territories that had previously been lost to military conquest. Who wouldn’t want to be the bearer of this good news to Israel? This assignment surely made Jonah one of the most popular people in the kingdom.
Like Jonah, sometimes we love God’s messaging. After all, the Bible is good news, filled with great and precious promises! But a pursuit of God doesn’t always serve up the message we want to hear. Sometimes God calls us out of our comfort zones.
The Second Message
Jonah’s next calling from God was a different matter altogether. This time God wasn’t calling him to give another message to the Israelites – but instead to a pagan, Gentile city.
Jonah 1:1-2 The Lord gave this message to Jonah son of Amittai, “Get up and go to the great city of Nineveh. Announce my judgment against it because I have seen how wicked its people are.” But Jonah got up and went in the opposite direction to get away from the Lord. He went down to the port of Joppa, where he found a ship leaving for Tarshish. He bought a ticket and went on board, hoping to escape from the Lord by sailing to Tarshish.
This time Jonah was called to be the bearer of bad news. Instead of responding in obedience, Jonah ran – in the exact opposite direction of God’s calling! Later in the story we learn why Jonah fled (Jonah 4:2): he knew that God is compassionate, and he couldn’t stand the thought that God might let Israel’s enemies off the hook.
Like Jonah, sometimes we push against God’s messaging and we want to run. We want to accept the good news and reject the bad. We pursue God on our own terms, and when we don’t like what we hear, we run. And like Jonah, we can always find a boat going in the wrong direction.
Collateral Damage
It’s common knowledge that Jonah’s running almost cost him his life. But few people remember that his disobedience had a ripple effect on the innocent bystanders in his story. Jonah boarded a boat headed for Tarshish and it wasn’t long before its crew was in a world of hurt.
Jonah 1:4-5 But the Lord hurled a powerful wind over the sea, causing a violent storm that threatened to break the ship apart. Fearing for their lives, the desperate sailors shouted to their gods for help and threw the cargo overboard to lighten the ship.
Consider the scene from the sailors’ perspective. They didn’t invite Jonah onto their boat or into their story; he just showed up. Little did they know that this disobedient prophet would cause them great material and emotional loss, even to the point of risking their lives.
Like Jonah, our bad choices create collateral damage. The devil tries to persuade us that our disobedience only impacts our own lives, but there’s always a ripple effect. The Bible tells us the wages of sin is death (Romans 6:23) and our sin always brings loss – emotional, physical, relational, spiritual – to us and others.
The Providence of God
The crew finds out that Jonah is to blame for the storm and begins to interrogate him. They discover that he is a prophet of God and become even more terrified. They try harder to row to shore, but it’s no use; the storm is too powerful. Jonah convinces them to throw him overboard, and as soon as they do, the sea goes calm. Their response is often overlooked:
Jonah 1:16 The sailors were awestruck by the Lord’s great power, and they offered him a sacrifice and vowed to serve him.
The story of Jonah is a tale of incredible miracles, and here’s the most shocking one: a changed life. The sailors didn’t know God at the beginning of the story, and by the end they’re offering him a sacrifice of praise. Notice that they didn’t make a vow to God if he would deliver them; they did it because he had already done it. God used Jonah’s disobedience to reveal himself to these unsuspecting pagan sailors, and it changed everything for them. This is the principle of God’s providence:
Romans 8:28 (NLT) And we know that God causes everything to work together for the good of those who love God and are called according to his purpose for them.
Like with Jonah, God can make good out of our bad decisions. He is always at work, whether we’re running to him or from him. That’s the thread that runs through the book of Jonah. It’s more than an epic fish tale. It’s the story of the God of miracles who’s eager to give everyone a second chance.
