Verses 1-2
Jonah was a prophet. He was a man who spoke the words of God. When God wanted to speak to the nation of Israel, he often would speak through one of his prophets. He would reveal his words to a prophet and then the prophet would go out and proclaim this message from God.
And so in verse 1, God tells Jonah to go to the city of Nineveh and to call out against the city or as the NIV says, “to preach against the city. God wanted the people of Nineveh to know that the very God of heaven and earth was aware of their wickedness and judgment was coming.
In verses 1-2, we immediately see two acts of grace.
The first act of grace is this: God allowing Jonah to be a part of what God was doing. God was going to give a wicked people the opportunity to repent. God was going to give a wicked people the opportunity to experience God’s mercy. And God gave Jonah the privilege of being apart of what God was desiring to accomplish. God didn’t need Jonah. That was God’s grace to Jonah.
The second act of grace that we see in verses 1-2 is God sending someone to Nineveh to let them know that God was aware of their evil ways and that He was bringing judgment on their city. And we might ask, “how is that God’s grace?” It is God’s grace because God was giving them the gift of the opportunity to repent. God could have just brought judgment on them without warning. Their wickedness demanded judgment. But by the grace of God he was giving them the opportunity to repent. An opportunity that was not earned. It was simply God’s unmerited favor on their lives.
If we find ourselves in a season of rebellion against God, and God sends someone into our life to rebuke us or He brings circumstances into our life to discipline us, that discipline or rebuke is God’s grace on our lives. Because through that rebuke or discipline, God is desiring to bring us to repentance and back into a right relationship with Him. God was asking Jonah to go to Nineveh and preach against their sin so that they would turn from their wickedness and turn to God. God’s rebuke on Nineveh is God’s amazing grace on Nineveh.
And so chapter 1 begins with God giving his prophet a very normal request: Go and preach a message of repentance. But it does not take long for this story to become anything but normal.
Verse 3
The story of Jonah is such a well-known story that we have gotten to the point that when we read verse 3 we longer feel shocked or startled or surprised by Jonah’s response. But the actions of Jonah in verse 3 are so bizarre that the first-time reader would surely find themselves thinking, “Did I miss something here?”
Because up to this point we are not given any motivation to why he fled. And not only are we not given any reason why he might want to run, but his actions are completely inconsistent with the actions of other prophets. In fact, Jonah is the only prophet recorded in the Old Testament to not do what God had told him to do.
The words of the prophet Amos are more consistent with how other biblical prophets responded to God. Amos 3:8 says, “The Lord God has spoken, who can but prophesy?” In other words, Amos was saying, if God tells me to speak, how can I not speak? If God tells me to go, how can I not go—He’s God, He’s creator. And I am simply an instrument in His hands.
And so when we see God speak to one of his prophets and the prophet flees from God we should find ourselves saying, “there has to be more to the story.”
Well, God’s message that he wanted Jonah to proclaim was a little different than the messages that God typically gave to His prophets to proclaim. And what was different was who the message was intended for. When God spoke to a prophet he was often desiring to deliver a message to His own people, the nation of Israel. And when He was calling a people to repentance, it was often His own people that He was calling to repentance. And so the prophets of Israel were primary speaking to the people of Israel.
But God’s message for Jonah to proclaim was not a message to Israel—it was a message to Israel’s enemies. It was a message for a people who did not serve God. It was a message to a people who were wicked. People who had done evil thing and people who continued to do evil things.
I don’t think Jonah would have had any problem going to Nineveh for the purpose of telling them that God was going to destroy them. Jonah would have probably enjoyed that mission. But Jonah fully understood that by preaching to the city and calling them to repentance that God was giving the city of Nineveh, a people who were not God’s chosen people, an opportunity to repent.
And this bothered Jonah.
Jonah was thinking “Why should wicked people who do not serve God, who are disobedient toward God, have an opportunity to repent. Jonah did not want Nineveh to be spared. He wanted them to be destroyed. And we know that this is what He was thinking because He tells us in chapter 4 this was why he ran from God.
The second part of Jonah 4:2 says, “…That is why I made haste to flee to Tarshish; for I knew that you are a gracious God and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love, and relenting from disaster.”
Jonah knew the character of God. He had seen it in God’s own relationship with Israel. He had seen His grace and His mercy. He knew that God was slow to anger. He knew that there was a good chance that God would soften Nineveh’s hearts and that Nineveh could repent and that God would not bring judgment on Israel’s enemies.
And that is exactly what Jonah did not want to see happen. It is one thing for God to ask Jonah to call Israel to repentance, that is what Jonah would have desired. He and His people would have been recipients of God’s mercy and grace. But it was another thing for God to give His grace and mercy to the very enemies of Israel—the very people who Jonah felt did not deserve God’s grace.
Grace is a funny thing. We are always eager and willing to freely receive it in our own lives (even when we know that we don’t deserve it) but too often we can be quick to withhold grace and mercy when we think that someone else does not deserve it.
When Jonah fled from God he was making a huge statement before God. He was saying, “those wicked people do not deserve your grace.” When Jonah makes that statement through his fleeing and through his own words in chapter 4, he was revealing how he viewed how own relationship with God. He was revealing that He believed he and the nation of Israel had somehow earned God’s favor. ‘It is ok for God to bless us because we deserve it.”
And it can be easy for us to develop the same type of mindset in our own lives. And the way we know that we have that mindset is if we ever find ourselves thinking, “that person doesn’t deserve forgiveness. That person doesn’t deserve grace. That person doesn’t deserve mercy.”
It seems like every week we hear about some new horrific act of evil that has been committed in this world. And as we read the account of the evil act, we burn with anger and outrage desiring instant judgment for that person. And we find ourselves thinking, I would never be able to forgive someone who did that to me. And we struggle even imagining that God could actual give that person any grace or mercy or forgiveness because their actions were so horrendous, so evil, so wicked.
But when we find ourselves creating a criteria for grace that determines who can and cannot receive grace then we are no longer talking about biblical grace. We are no longer talking about something that is unmerited and unearned. The Bible says that our salvation comes by grace and not by works, not by any effort on our part. We are saved by grace through faith in Jesus Christ.
And if it is our desire to develop a criteria for those who can and cannot receive grace and mercy and forgiveness then we need to be prepared for no one to reserve it. Not you not me not anyone. Because no one deserves God’s grace.
Romans 3:10 tells us that no one is righteous, not even one…there is no one who seeks God, there is no one who does good.” What Romans 3 is saying is that apart from God, no one can stand before Him and claim to be righteousness. No one can stand before God and claim to be good. No deserve His blessings. No one. “For all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.”
Jonah found himself operating out of a prideful, selfish heart. A heart that said, “I deserve God’s grace, but you don’t.” I have done enough for God to bless me, but you haven’t.
And so in verse 3 Jonah did what a prideful heart always does, he ran from God.
I don’t think Jonah literally believed that he could escape from the presence of God—I think was trying to run from the task that God had given him. But Jonah was about to learn that God’s grace does not end when we refuse him but God’s grace will continue to pursue us. And for Jonah, God’s grace came in the form of discipline.
Verses 4-11
Jonah recognized that his rebellion against God is what brought this storm. And the moment he realized that it seemed like he had one option: to repent of his sin before God. To say, God, I confess that I have been selfish before you and my heart became hardened before you. God, I ask for your forgiveness. I repent of my selfishness. May these men not pay the punishment for my sin. Spare their life, O God. I submit myself to you. Out of obedience I will go to Nineveh.
I believe if Jonah had spoken those words the storm would have stopped right then. Jonah could have entered back into a right relationship with God. But this is where the story reveals the true selfishness of Jonah and the selfishness of sin. Because Jonah decided there was a second option.
In verse 11, the men said, “What shall we do to you that the sea may calm down?”
Verse 12
Jonah chose death rather than repentance. Jonah chose death rather than obedience. Jonah would rather die than see his enemies receive mercy. Jonah would rather take his own life than see his enemies receive forgiveness. This is the selfishness and pride of sin.
There may be someone in this room right now and a part of your story is that at some point in your life someone wronged you, hurt you, betrayed…abused you. And you determined that you would never forgive them. They would never receive your grace or your mercy.
I understand that emotion. It is painful to be wronged and betrayed.
But when we harbor unforgiveness it does not remain isolated within that relationship. In fact, it impacts our relationship with God and it impacts our relationship with others. That unforgiveness in one area begins to hinder our ability to forgive in all other areas. And not only do we struggle to offer forgiveness, we then struggle to receive forgiveness.
And we begin to live a life not out of grace but out of merit. ‘I will love you as long as you prove your love to me. I will forgive you if you prove that you are worthy to be forgiven.” But that is not the life God called us to live—He desire for us to walk in the freedom and the joy of his grace and mercy and forgiveness.
Listen to the description in Colossians 3 of the type of life God has called us to as believers in Christ.
Since God chose you to be the holy people he loves, you must clothe yourselves with tenderhearted mercy, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience. Make allowance for each other’s faults, and forgive anyone who offends you. Remember, the Lord forgave you, so you must forgive others. Above all, clothe yourselves with love, which binds us all together in perfect harmony (Colossians 3:12-14).
This is not where Jonah was—his hardened heart had kept him from forgiving his enemy–leading him to demonstrate the ultimate act of selfishness. Chapter 1 ends with Jonah choosing to end his own life-with Jonah choosing to die rather than extending mercy and grace.
Verses 13-16
Jonah’s pride had so consumed him that it led to him wanting to die rather than seeing his enemies experience God’s grace.
I am so thankful that God did not feel the same way about His enemies. Because the Bible tell us in Romans 5:10 that because of our sin we were enemies of God—and that while we were enemies God did run from us but he ran to us. And He poured his grace and mercy upon our lives by sending his Son Jesus to die for our sins.
The difference between Jonah and Christ is that Jonah would choose to die so his enemies would not experience God’s grace and mercy. And Christ chose to die so that his enemies would have the opportunity to experience God’s grace and mercy
The bible says that if we repent of our sins, that He is faithful and just to forgive our sins (1 John 1:9). That is God’s grace and mercy on our lives. Through God’s mercy, He does not give us eternal death–that is what we deserve. And through God’s grace He gives us eternal life, that is what we don’t deserve.
Verses 17
Verse 17 is a verse that often overshadows this entire book. We can get so consumed by the fact that a fish swallows Jonah that we can miss the message of Jonah. We can find ourselves stuck in verse 17 asking questions like, “How could a fish swallow a man? And what kind of fish is big enough to swallow a man. Well, it must have been a whale but the Bible says it is a fish. And how could Jonah stay alive for 3 days inside a fish?” And the more we ask questions, the more our questions leave us unsatisfied—even leading some people to simply come to the conclusion that this must not have really happened—that this was just a fable, a made-up story.
And we become so consumed with the questions of verse 17 that we miss the message of God’s grace and mercy in this book.
When we come to verse 17 we can’t allow this verse to become a stumbling block for us. As we ask our questions about why would God use a fish to swallow Jonah, we always need to remind ourselves this:
God is God. God will do what God wills to bring about God’s will. God will do whatever God desires to bring about His purposes. So often we get so focused on why God is doing something or how God is doing something that we forget to focus on what God is doing.
The question is not how could a fish swallow a man or what kind of fish was this–the question is what was God’s purpose in appointing this fish to swallow Jonah?
I think there are two primary purposes for what occurs in verse 17.
The first purpose was to rescue Jonah. God used this to save him from drowning. The fish was God’s tool in delivering Jonah from death.
The second purpose was a form of discipline. There were a lot of different ways he could have rescued him but he choose a way that brought distress and discomfort to Jonah and I think he did that to bring Jonah to a place of repentance.
Sometimes God’s rescue in our life can feel like a time of great pain. But there is purpose in that pain. And God uses that difficult season to draw us back to God.
I want to share with you a story from wife’s life. A story she has given me the permission to share. Many years before I met my wife she was in a relationship that was heading toward marriage. In fact, the guy she was dating even met with her dad to ask permission to marry her and my wife’s dad said, “No.” Her parents did not think this was a good relationship and they would not give their blessing to this marriage. This was a man that she wanted to marry. She made a very difficult decision at that moment in her life. She decided she would not enter into a marriage that her parents would not give their blessing to. She wanted to marry this guy but instead she broke off the relationship. It was a time of great pain for her
But my wife would be the first to tell you now that her parents not giving their blessing was God’s grace on her life. And she recognizes that God rescued her from a relationship that was not a good relationship. But God’s rescue in her life involved her going through a season of much pain.
I imagine that Jonah did not initially see the fish as rescue, he probably saw it as death. He probably didn’t see it as salvation but as suffering. And sometimes God allows us to go through difficult seasons—whether it is difficult physically, emotionally, financially or something else in order to mature us spiritually—to draw us to back him.
When I am praying for someone who is going through something difficult—my first prayer is not simply God, heal them or remove this from them. But my first prayer is, “God, use this to draw them to you. God, use this to grow them spiritually.”
When we go through difficult times, don’t assume that God has abandoned you—It could be God is using that situation to mature you.
It’s interesting that in verse 3, Jonah ran from God and then in the next 13 verses it is all about God pursuing Jonah. Verse 3 could have been the end of our knowledge of a prophet named Jonah. After he ran in verse 3, verse 4 could have said and then God’s spoke to another prophet. But God pursued Jonah.
This is the character of God. He is a God who is in constant pursuit of us. He desires for us to know him. He desires for us to be in a relationship with Him. He desires for us to be people who are spiritually mature. And so God is in constant pursuit of us.
One of the verses that is always an encouragement to me is Philippians 1:6 that tells us that “he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.” What God started in you as a believer in Jesus Christ, God will complete in you. Which means that God is constantly at work in your life. And if you run from Him, as a believer in Jesus Christ, if you are in a season of disobedience, He will pursue you, because you belong to Him. He desires to bring you back into a right relationship with Him because He is at work in your life conforming you to the image of His son Jesus Christ.
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