A Rebel and the Storm-Making God

Jonah 1:4-5

If ever we think the Lord simply glosses over rebellion to His Word, we are mistaken. If we think it is a light matter to ignore the command of God in the Great Commission and to ignore the example of the believers sharing the gospel throughout the book of Acts, we are fooling ourselves. Let God serve notice to all of us: He is prepared to break up this ship, drown Jonah, and let all of these idol-worshiping sailors perish, all in response to Jonah’s rebellious actions. The Lord will make a storm to wreak havoc and wreck our plans when we readily dismiss obedience to His command.

God responds so fiercely because rebellion is serious. Sin, in any form, is something our God hates. When someone brushes off the Holy Spirit’s urging to tell a person about Jesus, eventually that person could clear his conscience by going on with routine business. But the Lord does not brush off sin. Sin is an affront to God’s absolute holiness. Our “God is light, and there is absolutely no darkness in Him” (1 John 1:5). James says that God cannot be tempted by evil (Jas 1:14). God’s eyes are too pure to look on evil (Hab 1:13)! If He were to permit Jonah’s sin (or ours) and sin were to go without reckoning, then He would not be holy, and we could rebel against anything and everything He says without concern for consequences. Commands would become some good advice from a well-meaning and nice deity rather than absolute directives from a righteous and all-powerful Creator whom one disobeys at one’s own peril. William L. Banks comments:

Rebellion never escapes God’s notice, and it is foolish for men to think they can resist God’s will with impunity. . . .The Lord may let a man go to a certain point before He steps in, but when He does move, He moves with no uncertainty. (Jonah, 2)

In his anger toward Jonah’s sin, the Lord hurls a great wind on the sea. This is no minor storm. These seasoned mariners are scared for their lives. They begin praying as they have never prayed before, calling on any god who can still the chaotic forces of the sea. If they are typical sailors, some of them are so hard and salty they probably have never prayed so earnestly—if at all!—until God unleashed this storm on them.

They are hurling cargo as God is hurling a great wind. (It is pretty obvious who is going to win the battle of hurling.) Such evasive actions are ridiculous when you are dealing with the Lord. The Lord does not want their cargo; He wants the obedience of His child! They don’t know this yet, so in fear of death, they keep hurling.

If anyone should be scared, however, it is Jonah, for he knows the power of God—that nothing can stop Him. In one moment He has the power to take calm seas and make them rough; in another minute He can take the roughest seas and calm them in an instant with the words, “Silence! Be still!” (Mark 4:39).

As believers, if we think we are safe from God’s judgment because of the grace that is ours in Christ, remember that the Lord disciplines His own, as says the writer to the Hebrews (Heb 12:6). In the church at Corinth the Lord put His children on sickbeds and deathbeds for profaning the Lord’s Supper—people who had the same grace in Christ that all believers do (1 Cor 11:30). God can send a storm on one’s income; He can hurl a wind on one’s health; He can crush one’s grades, scholarships, and dreams in school. When we rebel, He can do whatever it takes to get us to return to Him or to take us out of this present life in our disobedience.

When we rebel against God’s clear instruction and purpose for us, He can bring a veritable storm into our lives. The discipline He brings will often be no subtle nudge but rather a maelstrom of trouble that not only affects us but brings danger and damage to those around us as well. And just as Jonah went down to Joppa, went down into the ship, and lay down virtually unconscious, the path of rebellion will never take us to the heights of value, virtue, and activity. To reject God’s purpose is to reject our best purpose. The one who has done that finds himself either purposeless and torpid or striving vainly at cross purposes with God, neither of which leads to a fulfilling, vibrant life.

The Lord does not have to put us in an accident; He can simply put life in neutral until we decide that we are going to proclaim the gospel no matter the size and power of the Ninevehs we face. To rebel is to invite His wrath.

Jonah 1:6

Interestingly, the whole ship has gone to prayer, but Jonah is asleep! He is sleeping so well that the captain must awaken him.

Sadder than Jonah’s nap is that these men want to escape death, and the only one who has the means of escape is sleeping. With every snore the sailors and Jonah are coming closer to their ends. The sailors think that calling on one of their gods and chucking the cargo will help. The captain wants Jonah to wake up and call on his “god.” Nothing is working.

Unlike the polytheistic sailors, Jonah knows the Lord! Therefore, his sleeping is ensuring that the sailors perish forever. “What a great missionary opportunity for Jonah,” writes Anthony Selvaggio. “He had an opportunity to alleviate the fear of the sailors by sharing with them the knowledge of the true God, but instead chose to go below deck and fall asleep. . . . Obviously, Jonah had no desire to extend God’s grace to these pagan sailors” (The Prophets, 71).

Jonah is denying perishing men an opportunity for the hope of the Lord’s salvation. He feels he cannot tell them of the Lord’s mercy because he does not want to tell Nineveh of the Lord’s mercy. All around him are people who want a solution to escape death, but Jonah is trying to flee from the presence of the Solution!

Recently, in a sermon, I offered these words to unbelievers sitting among our congregation:

Later, at the end of today’s service, as at the end of almost every service, we are going to provide an opportunity to respond to the message. For you who are not believers among us—not saved, you do not love Jesus with your whole heart even if you acknowledge the very real existence of God (for knowing that He exists is not enough for salvation)—we invite you to make a decision about placing your trust in Christ, the Son of God, against whom we have rebelled since the beginning of time. We invite others to make known a need for baptism, consider membership, or rededicate their lives to the Lord or be restored from unrepentant sin. But to you, the lost one, we offer an opportunity to profess that you believe on the Son of God, Jesus Christ, who died to pay the penalty for our sins and rose again to offer life after death. Why do we do this? We do this because we have hope, and we want you to have the same hope of salvation.

However, we want people to have the message of hope more than the one day a week they come into a worship service. We want them to have this hope daily. That is, if we care about them, we want them to share our hope. So rather than rebelling, we offer the message of salvation willingly, eagerly, boldly, humbly, and zealously.

How do we apply a message like this to make sure that we are not rebelling, rejecting, and gaining wrath, but instead are faithfully offering the hope of the gospel to those around us? Consider four things:

1. Go on the offensive on Monday mornings. When you arrive to work after the weekend, someone may ask you, “How was your weekend?” Make a reply to them that opens an opportunity for the gospel: “I heard a great sermon at church on Sunday that explained how embracing Jesus’ death and resurrection can transform one’s outlook on one’s vocation” (or something similar). Share a 30–60-second synopsis of the main point of the message as it relates to Christ and His work. When you are finished, say, “I would love to share more from the message with you later.” Look for that opportunity and similar ones weekly.

2. Be clear on the gospel and its significance. Jonah did not seem to grasp the significance of his calling to the Ninevites. His message was the only hope for these idol worshipers in the storm of God’s judgment. Similarly, as sinners before the Holy God, people are deserving of His deepest and eternal wrath. Our message about Christ’s substitutionary work as God’s propitiation for sin and as the One who alone defeats death is the only message of hope for lost people.

3. Pray for opportunities to share the gospel clearly, courageously, and humbly. If anyone will give a hearing to the life-saving message of Christ, it will depend on the working of God’s power. As Paul asked of the churches,

Pray also for me, that the message may be given to me when I open my mouth to make known with boldness the mystery of the gospel. For this I am an ambassador in chains. Pray that I might be bold enough in Him to speak as I should. (Eph 6:19-20)

And again,

At the same time, pray also for us that God may open a door to us for the message, to speak the mystery of the Messiah, for which I am in prison, so that I may reveal it as I am required to speak. (Col 4:3-4)

4. Actively and regularly invite people within your spheres of influence to Sunday worship services. The gospel should be read, preached, sung, prayed, and displayed (in the ordinances) every Sunday at your church. Therefore, bringing unbelievers to worship with us is one possible means of introducing them to the message of Christ. Use paper invitations, social media, e-mail, text messages, and every possible means to offer them an opportunity to sit in a pew with you. But do not allow these invitations to substitute for verbally proclaiming the gospel. We must open our mouths and share; we must speak, using our words to explain carefully the gospel.

We must speak the good news because our Lord Jesus, when He came down from heaven to a place of great evil—the earth—came using His words:

This Jesus, for the joy set before Him, went to the Cross, became the propitiation for my sins, became sin for me, bore my sins in His body on a tree, died for my sins according to the Scriptures, was buried, and rose again after three days, and along the way saved me through the preaching of the gospel! It should be a little thing for me to tell someone else how He can save them.