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Sustaining Love (Jonah 1)
to Joppa was 60 miles. From Joppa to Tarshish was much farther. Jonah bought his ticket, got on board the ship, and quickly fell asleep. God sent a severe storm. The sailors panicked, prayed to their gods, jettisoned the cargo, and rebuked the sleepy prophet for not praying.
Behind the prophet Jonah, the sailors, the ship, the storm, and the fish, there was the God who was master of the sea (see Mark 4:35-41; John 6:16-21).
God was the one who sent the storm (Jonah 1:4). Jonah acknowledged that God made the sea and the dry land. And the Lord provided a huge fish. A God who can keep a human alive in the belly of a fish, pro- vide a vine to shade the belly- aching prophet (4:6), and provided a worm to eat the vine (4:7) can surely send a storm and rescue someone out of that storm.
The storm was significant enough to scare experienced sailors. In verse 13 the storm grew even wilder than before.
The God of the Bible is not some local deity who can only defeat his enemies on either land or sea. God made both, and he can send and calm any of the some 2,000 storms that exist on the planet at any given moment.
Jonah’s Fault | Jonah 1:7-12
Jonah struggled to obey God (1:3), and he never really did capture the heart of God (4:10, 11). However, he never forgot his identity. He told the sailors that he was a Hebrew and he worships the Lord. He also was quite open in sharing with the sailors that he was running away from the Lord. He acknowledged that the storm was his fault and if he was thrown into the sea then the storm would cease.
The one thing that Jonah had going for himself was that he emotionally owned his sin. While he seemed to wear his feelings on his shirt sleeves (see 4:2,3), he still connected the dots between his disobedi- ence and the storm. Based on this honest self-evaluation, he
basically said, “Behold, I have found the problem with the world, and it’s me.” The sin- cerity of this ownership of sin is seen in the depths of his prayer in chapter 2.
Sailors’ Prayer | Jonah 1:13-17
In chapter 1, more space is devoted to the sailors than to Jonah or God. They play a sig- nificant role in this opening scene, even though they did not ask for it. They gave evi- dence of their worldview by casting lots. For them, the world operated by chance (Proverbs 16:33). They in- terrogated Jonah in an at- tempt to get to the bottom of their situation. They prayed for forgiveness in advance before throwing Jonah overboard.
God’s sustaining love is evi- dent throughout this chapter. His love sustained the universe even in the storm. His love sustained the sailors even though they may well have been pagans. And his love sus- tained a disobedient prophet in the belly of the fish three days and three nights.
The book of Jonah shows the extent of God’s grace —- the message of salvation is for ALL people. It touches upon some major biblical themes—God’s sovereignty in creation, God’s love for the nations, Jesus’ res- urrection, and the high prior- ity of obedience in the lives of the Lord’s servants. In this story we see the prophet Jonah running from God, running to God, running for God, and running against God.
Jesus spoke about Jonah and his experience in the fish as a historical event (Matthew 12:39-41).
The prophet Jonah preceded Amos and ministered to the northern 10 tribes known as
Israel during the reign of Jer- oboam II, a powerful king. Jonah was given a task to go into enemy territory, the most important city in Assyria, Nin- eveh and call the people to re- pentance. (Nineveh for 50 years was the capitol of As- syria, Israel’s most dreaded enemy. Nineveh was not talked about much by Jonah, however it was known to be wicked: with plots against God (Nahum 1:9); exploitation against the helpless; (Nahum 2:12, 13) cruelty in war; idol- atry, prostitution and witch- craft). Jonah ran in the opposite direction.
Jonah was from Gath Hep- her near Nazareth. From there
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