But Yahweh hurled a great wind on the sea, and there was a great storm on the sea so that the ship gave thought to breaking apart! -Jonah 1:4
Perhaps I should have titled this post, “Prophetic Dullness”.
Jonah was an authentic prophet of God. He had the ability to hear God’s voice with crystal clarity. He knew exactly what God wanted him to do. And yet, a certain dullness had come over him. He saw himself as an independent operator who could pick and choose the missions that he wanted to go on. His dullness led him to believe that he could refuse the call of God without suffering ramifications.
How does a prophet of God get to the place where disobedience is treated lightly?
God tells him to preach against the city and Jonah says to himself, “You know what? I’m going to flee from the presence of Yahweh!”
Did Jonah actually think he could flee from the presence of God? Surely Jonah was in a place of spiritual dullness to think he could get away with defiant rebellion to God’s call.
Psalm 139 hadn’t been written yet.
Where can I go from Your Spirit? Or where can I flee from Your presence? -Psalm 139:7
Poor Jonah wasn’t able to reference that verse!
But it only gets better…
If I ascend to heaven, You are there; If I make my bed in Sheol, behold, You are there. If I lift up the wings of the dawn, If I dwell in the remotest part of the sea,..
Opps! Maybe it’s not such a good idea to jump on a ship and go to the remotest part of the sea Jonah!
Even there Your hand will lead me, And Your right hand will lay hold of me. -Psalm 139:10
That last verse is meant to be comforting, but it can also be a double-edged sword if you’re in disobedience!
It could aptly be named “Jonah’s verse”!
If I dwell in the remotest part of the sea, Even there Your hand will lead me, and Your right hand will lay hold of me. -Psalms 139:9-10
On the one hand, if I’m walking in obedience, it’s wonderfully reassuring to know that God’s hand can reach me wherever I am. Even if I’m floating away in the remotest part of the sea God can reach me! It’s comforting to think that God would be able lay hold of me there and I wouldn’t find myself all alone.
On the other hand, if I’m in disobedience like Jonah was, it’s rather ominous to consider the fact that God’s hand can reach me even if I’m floating out on a ship somewhere in the middle of nowhere. God is able to locate me and lay hold of me no matter where I am!
Jonah certainly learned the truth of this verse the hard way when God sent a directed storm aimed right at the ship he was on. This providential act of God lead to Jonah being thrown overboard and swallowed up by a great fish. Jonah quickly found himself in the belly of a whale “with seaweed wrapped around my head!” as he tells the spectacular story. No doubt Jonah had a flair for the dramatic, but in this case, for good reason! This is certainly what I would call the hand of the Lord laying hold of Jonah!
And Yahweh appointed a great fish to swallow Jonah, and Jonah was in the stomach of the fish three days and three nights. -Jonah 1:17
This is a good place to take a pause and consider that the Lord knows how to hem us in. He has many ways to do that, some more severe than others. Believe me when I say, if you ever find yourself “in the belly of a whale” you will gain a whole new appreciation of what it means for the Lord to lay hold of you. I’ve found myself in that proverbial place before and I would rather not revisit it!
I don’t believe for a minute that Jonah was oblivious to the Lord’s ability to catch up with him. He knew exactly what the Lord was capable of when he boarded that ship to flee from God’s presence, but as I said, he had allowed a certain dullness to come into his heart. Otherwise Jonah would have certainly been quick to obey. When I look at the lives of those in scripture, and I examine my own life, rebellion and disobedience are always a product of getting our eyes off God and losing our fear of the Lord.
As we read the story of Jonah we come to understand the distortions that were in his mind.
And he prayed to Yahweh and said, “Ah! O Yahweh, was not this my word to myself while I was still in my own land? Therefore I went ahead to flee to Tarshish, for I knew that You are a gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger and abundant in lovingkindness, and one who relents concerning evil. -Jonah 4:2
The damning evidence against Jonah comes from his own lips!
He uses the phrase, “Was not this my word to myself?” As a prophet of God he had no business meditating upon his own words, and thoughts, and feelings, and ideas! The very first verse of the Book of Jonah starts off like this: “Now the word of the LORD came to Jonah.” That should have been the end of the story.
Jonah already had a word from God, he didn’t need a word from himself!
When Jonah begins to think of himself rather than the mission that the LORD had sent him on everything began to go downhill.
Jonah was more concerned with his image than he was with seeing people set free. He was more concerned with how obeying God would affect him than he was with pleasing the LORD. If pleasing the LORD was going to make Jonah look bad he would rather please himself!
Jonah didn’t want to look like a fool. Jonah didn’t want to look like a false prophet. God him told him to preach against the city and Jonah knew very well if they repented God would show mercy to them.
“Get up! Go to the great city of Nineveh and preach against it, because its wickedness has come up before Me.” -Jonah 1:2
To put this in modern terms, it would be like God telling one of his prophets today to publish a YouTube video and preach against America that certain judgment was coming. Notice the specificity of the prophetic word that Jonah was called to preach.
Then Jonah began to go into the city, one day’s walk; and he called out and said, “Yet forty days and Nineveh will be overthrown.” -Jonah 3:4
He was called to preach judgment and he had a specific timetable of when it was going to occur. Now imagine somebody doing that today on YouTube and the video goes viral, and people repent, and God ends up sending mercy instead of judgment. It’s great for America but it makes the guy who put the YouTube video up look like a false prophet! Especially if it’s a video that has you saying destruction is going to come in 40 days, but it totally fails to happen!! Well, that’s the kind of situation that Jonah found himself in. He had a strong feeling that God was going to be merciful and he didn’t want to look like a fool by preaching judgment.
In a twist of circumstance brought about by Jonah’s own disobedience, Jonah was about to find out that soon HE WOULD BE THE ONE IN NEED OF MERCY.
I think the trouble with Jonah is that he grew lazy in his own life. He failed to consider that what God would do with others, God would also do with him!
It’s a very dangerous thing when you get to the place where you think that God will deal with others but let you off the hook!
Jonah was a prophet of God and he should have known better.
We are not above the message that we carry. The God who sends us to others is the same God who holds us accountable in our own lives. We don’t get a pass because we’re servants of the Lord!
This brings me back to my original point.
A truly prophetic person not only hears the Lord for others, but strives to understand the mind of God for their own life and obey it.
There was a wave and a whale in Jonah’s future if Jonah chose to disobey. It didn’t have to be that way. Spiritual dullness had led Jonah to a place of self-deception. Prophets of God are subject to God, not to their own whims. Certainly Jonah knew that, but dullness had robbed him of the fear of the Lord.