God's Storm (Jonah 1:4-17)
[Read Jonah 1:4-17]
As we get older, our parents have a way of grinning every time we complain about the stubbornness of our own children. You see a glimmer in their eye and a smile that says, “Tell me about it! It’s only payback for your own stubbornness.” Which is probably true. Parenting a stubborn child is not an easy thing to do. In reality, it requires a level of parental stubbornness. At times it even feels like a battle of the wills. Who’s going to crack first? Who’s the most stubborn? Parent’s also learn that parenting stubborn children requires creativity. We can’t parent this child in the same way that we parented our other children. It isn’t going to work. We have to do things differently, pull different tools out of the toolbox, learn new skills, etc… Yet, we don’t have the option of giving up on this child. We have to keep at, doing our very best to raise this child in a way that is honoring to the Lord.
Here’s a helpful reminder for all of us: Every single one of us is a stubborn, rebellious child. Ouch! I’m not talking about when we were children. I’m talking about right now. Every single one of us has a natural tendency to rebel and run away from God’s call upon our lives. Not only is it our natural tendency to run away from God, but we stubbornly run away from God. We are determined to do things our own way. We look at God like a two-year-old and say, “I can do it by myself!”
As we pick up the rest of the story in chapter one, this is where we find Jonah. Last week we talked about God’s tendency to call us to do things that go against our natural tendencies, and we watched Jonah stubbornly run away from that call. As we finish out the rest of this chapter, we begin to see the outworking of Jonah’s stubborn rebellion. It isn’t good.
We read, “Then the LORD sent a great wind on the sea, and such a violent storm arose that the ship threatened to break up. All the sailors were afraid and each cried out to his own god. And they threw the cargo into the sea to lighten the ship.” (Jonah 1:4–5, NIV). In response to Jonah’s stubborn rebellion, the Lord throws a great wind upon the sea, and a violent storm rises up. It’s such a violent storm that it scares the living daylights out of hardened, experienced sailors. They were used to sailing in the midst of storms, but this storm is different. They were afraid the ship was going to break to pieces. They were so afraid that they began throwing the cargo overboard to lighten the ship. None of their provisions had any value to them anymore. They valued their lives much more. So, they pitched everything overboard. They were so afraid that they called out, each to their own god. They figured that maybe one of their gods would help them. Yet, no help came. Actually, the storm continued to get worse and worse.
In the midst of this chaotic and frightening scene, sailors frantically trying to save their own lives in any way they can, the text says, “But Jonah had gone below deck, where he lay down and fell into a deep sleep.” (Jonah 1:5, NIV). Now, it’s important to interpret this part of the story correctly. This story can remind us of another story from the New Testament—where Jesus and his disciples are crossing the story Sea of Galilee and Jesus slept while the disciples freaked out about dying. Although these stories are similar, they are very different. Jesus slept in the storm-tossed ship because He had nothing to worry about; he was at peace and in control of the wind and waves. Yet, Jonah had LOTS to worry about. He was in blatant rebellion against the God of the universe. Not only that, but the Lord threw the storm at this ship because of Jonah’s rebellion. In the story about Jesus and the disciples, Jesus is the hero of the story. That’s not the case with Jonah. Jonah is the villain of this story. Jonah is not sleeping in the bottom of the ship because he trusted the Lord. He is sleeping because his heart has become hard. He no longer cares what happens to the ship, the sailors, or himself. He’s simply going to sleep it all away and ignore the rest of the world.
This is what happens when we continue in our rebellious sin—our hearts slowly harden. In Hebrews it says, “But exhort one another every day, as long as it is called “today,” that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin.” (Hebrews 3:13, ESV). As we continue further and further into our rebellious sin, our hearts become harder and harder. It becomes harder and harder for us to turn from our sin and repent. It becomes harder for us to look to God for our rescue.
Look at Jonah. The captain finds him sleeping in the bottom of the ship and chews him out: “How can you sleep? Get up and call on your god! Maybe he will take notice of us, and we will not perish.” (Jonah 1:6, NIV). The captain yells at him, “What are you doing?!? How can you be sleeping at a time like this? Get us and call on your god! Maybe he will save us!” You would think those words would have cut Jonah to the heart. The captain says that same things God told Jonah in the beginning of this story. God told Jonah, “Get up, go…and cry out against Nineveh,” now he hears the captain say, “Get up, go…and cry out to your god!” Yet, sadly, we never hear about Jonah calling out to God. His heart has hardened to the point that he won’t look to God for rescue. He doesn’t care anymore. He simply wants to sleep the rest of his life away.
So, the sailors took things into their own hands. They cast lots to figure out who is causing this storm to come upon them. Notice that the storm is bad enough, that they understand it to be something supernatural—they understand it to be a judgement of some god. The lot falls on Jonah and he gives them some sort of confession, saying, “I am a Hebrew and I worship the LORD, the God of heaven, who made the sea and the land.” (Jonah 1:9, NIV). He also told them that he was running away from the LORD. They crew is terrified. To make things worse, the text says, “The sea was getting rougher and rougher.” (Jonah 1:11, NIV). Things kept getting worse and worse.
The crew can’t take it anymore, so they ask Jonah, “What should we do to you to make the sea calm down for us?” (Jonah 1:11, NIV). Jonah’s response surprises us AND the crew. He says, ““Pick me up and throw me into the sea,” he replied, “and it will become calm. I know that it is my fault that this great storm has come upon you.”” (Jonah 1:12, NIV). The crew responded by saying, “No way, José!” And they jump to the oars and give it everything they’ve got in order to get back to land. They are pulling at the oars with every ounce of strength they have, yet they get nowhere. Actually, things get even worse: “the sea grew even wilder than before.” (Jonah 1:13, NIV).
From the beginning of this story, things keep going from bad to worse. Jonah’s heart keeps getting harder, the storm keeps getting wilder, seemingly innocent people’s lives are put in danger, nothing seems to be an option for getting out of this mess…except Jonah’s “surprising” proposal. Yet, I wonder why it is surprising to us. Why are we surprised that Jonah needs to be thrown overboard into a raging sea because of his rebellion? Haven’t we read the Bible? “For the wages of sin is death…” (Romans 6:23, NIV). The wages of sin is death. Period. Jonah is in high rebellion against God, determined NOT to follow God’s will. He’s living in blatant sin, which means he deserves to die. I realize we don’t like to speak so bluntly about these things, but the Bible DOES speak this bluntly about sin. When we sin, we deserve to die. Even hard-hearted Jonah understood this fact. He was in rebellion against God and deserved to die for his sin. So, he suggested that he be thrown overboard.
With that in mind, understanding that the wages of sin is death, we also shouldn’t be surprised when continuing in sin leads to more and more chaos and destruction—destruction that carries over into the lives of “innocent” people. Sin always does that! Sin always leads to death and destruction. Sin always has a way of affecting the people around us. There is no harmless sin! There is no sin that doesn’t affect anyone else! It always overflows onto those around us, bringing death and destruction with it. Let us not fool ourselves that sin is not a big deal. Let us not fool ourselves that our sin won’t affect those around us. The wages of sin is death.
Yet, in God’s mercy, He doesn’t always give us what we deserve. If we really got what we deserved, we’d all be dead. Yet, God is rich in mercy. So, rather than allowing Jonah to get what he deserves, God appoints a great fish—we don’t know that it was a whale—to swallow Jonah. God gives him a three-day timeout, inside a great fish, to think about who God is and what Jonah has done.
Not only that, but even the great storm was a mercy from God. Jonah never would have repented if that storm had never happened. Jonah would have continued rebelling against God, with he heart getting harder every minute of every day, drifting further and further away from God, falling deeper and deeper into sin, experiencing more and more destruction. Yet, the storm woke him up. The storm softened his heart...just a little bit. Remember, he still needed three days inside a great fish to soften his heart more. Yet, the storm was the beginning of the softening of his heart. The violent storm was a mercy from God, designed to bring Jonah to the point of repentance and restoration—designed to turn Jonah from the path of destruction that he was committed to
The fact that each one of us is here this morning is because of the mercy of God. He hasn’t given us what we deserve. We’re here and we’re alive. God has also shown us mercy through various difficulties we’ve encountered in our lives—storms thrown upon us by our Heavenly Father. In the midst of these storms it may not feel like God’s mercy. We may question whether God has deserted us. We may even question whether God has loved us. Yet, the reality is that these storms are thrown upon us by our Heavenly Father. Why?!?!
We are a stubborn, rebellious child of God. That’s why. We have to learn everything the hard way. When things are going easy and comfortably, we become complacent—ignoring God—or we become more prideful—thinking we don’t need God. We begin to walk away from God or even run away from God. We find ourselves slipping further and further into sin, our hearts becoming harder and harder as we go. In God’s mercy, he doesn’t give up on us. He keeps coming after us over and over again. We keep rebelling and running away from Him. He keeps chasing us down and drawing us back to himself. Thankfully, God has a variety of tools in his workshop for drawing us back to himself. He doesn’t always send a storm. Sometimes he sends a simply breeze. God knows exactly which tool he needs to use to bring us to repentance—to bring us to himself.
As we read through the Gospels, we see this same attribute in Jesus. When Jesus spoke to someone with a soft heart, he spoke soft words. To the woman caught in adultery, Jesus spoke soft words: ““Then neither do I condemn you,” Jesus declared. “Go now and leave your life of sin.”” (John 8:11, NIV). Yet, when Jesus spoke to someone with a hard heart, he spoke hard words. To the Pharisees he said, “Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You are like whitewashed tombs, which look beautiful on the outside but on the inside are full of dead men’s bones and everything unclean…You snakes! You brood of vipers! How will you escape being condemned to hell?” (Matthew 23:27, 33, NIV). Soft words to soft hearts. Hard words to hard hearts. Storms sent to hard hearts.
Now, not every storm in our life is the result of a hard heart. Yet, when we find ourselves in the midst of a storm, it wise for us to take some time to ask God IF this storm is designed to soften our hard heart—to ask God to search our heart for any aspect of our life that requires repentance. In every storm, we should be on our knees asking God to reveal HOW he is using the storm for our good. I can guarantee you one thing, every single storm that is thrown our way, is designed to draw us into a deeper and closer relationship with our Heavenly Father. So, draw near to him and trust his Fatherly hand.