Jonah and the Big Fish

To start this study, please get out your Bible and turn to the book of Jonah. In order to gain the most from this post, you'll need to read the passages we study on your own, as it takes too much room in the blog to copy and paste entire chapters of scripture. If you don't have a Bible handy, head on over to this website for a free, searchable online Bible. For the purposes of this study, I'll be using the NKJV and I've included links to the main scriptures we're going to talk about (finally figured out how easy it is to use hyperlinks - yay!).

So many times today, we get wrapped up in the latest development in our beliefs or we get lost in figuring out the Biblical perspective on various aspects of pop culture, and it's easy for us to forget about the things a lot of us learned when we were younger. As children, most people raised in any type of church are taught the various Bible stories: Noah and the Ark, Baby Moses and the Pharaoh, and so many others, including the story we’re going to talk about tonight – Jonah and the Big Fish. Before we continue, take a little time and read Jonah 1-3.

This story pretty much speaks for itself, but there are a few key points that I want to bring out in this study. The first one is one of the more obvious ones:


     1. We can’t hide from the Lord.

When Jonah heard the word of the Lord, he tried to run from the truth, but the truth still found him. He couldn’t escape what God had called him to do. Similarly, when we hear what God expects from us today, we can’t run from Him. Once each of us has heard the word of God and learned that he expects us to follow his word, we can’t hide from it – we can’t make any excuses because we know what we need to do.

Check out Psalms 139:7-14 - the psalmist makes this exact point, and he does so beautifully.

        2. We can try to hide from the Lord and pass the buck and still sleep soundly at night with nothing bothering our consciences.

In this story, we aren’t told of Jonah’s spiritual condition, but we can see that he ignored God’s call and slept through the storms. I think that’s something we really need to think about – he wasn’t following God and it didn’t bother his conscience. He wasn’t losing any sleep at night. He felt no remorse. Are we any different today?

It’s so easy for us to blame our choice not to follow God on other circumstances. Jonah may have thought something like “Well, Ninevah was a wicked city anyway, so God probably should allow them to be destroyed. It’s better for them and for me if I don’t go tell them of their coming destruction.” Would he have been justified in thinking that? No!! We can see in Jonah chapter 4 that his attitude about the city was exactly that, and God corrected him. Just because our gut feeling tells us we’re right in believing something doesn’t mean that we are!

Now read Jonah 4.

This brings us to our third point:

     3. God is patient and forgiving, but he will not hesitate to correct us when we act in open rebellion against him.

When Jonah made the free-will choice to rebel against God, God patiently created circumstances that would cause Jonah to seek God again, then stepped back to watch and see if Jonah had repented. When Jonah repented, God took away the burden he had given Jonah because it had served its purpose. Just because something happens to us in our lives that causes us to seek God doesn’t mean God is correcting us – it could just be a matter of chance – but sometimes, the things that happen to us do have the effect of causing us to look to God for guidance. And that’s no coincidence! 1 Cor. 10:12

     4. When bad things happen to us, they should cause us to look to God for guidance.

When life gets difficult, if we don’t look to God to guide us through the darkness, the difficulty could grow and grow until we reach a point that it consumes us. Depression, loneliness, and just overall misery could be on the horizon for us if we don’t look to God and follow him, trusting that he’ll help us make it through our difficulties. In chapter 4, we saw Jonah actually being suicidal! He was so upset by the things that had happened to him that he expressed a desire to die rather than live and have to deal with the things that were going on around him. God is the answer to all of our problems – he solved Jonah’s problems and he will solve our problems if we turn to him in our time of need.

This brings us to our last point for the night:

5.       God loves everyone equally, and he loves us all enough that he would rather send his Son to suffer for our sins than allow us to suffer. Romans 5:8

When God told Jonah what he needed to do, Jonah tried to escape Him and didn’t want to carry the burden. God corrected him, but then when Jonah realized that he had been wrong, God forgave him. We see the nurturing, fatherly side of God in this story so clearly – God patiently debated with Jonah while Jonah was trying to decide whether or not to repent and whether or not to follow him, both by speaking to him through His words and by influencing the things that happened in Jonah’s life to help him see the error of his ways. It is important to note here that Jonah was a follower of God to begin with – God called on him to go to Ninevah for a reason. He knew that Jonah, deep down, wanted to follow God. If we have decided to obey God and follow Christ, then He will speak to us through His word and influence the things that happen around us in ways we can’t even begin to understand through His providence, the providence of God, to help us see the right path for us to choose. If you aren’t a follower of God, bad things could happen to you for no reason, but if we’re Christians, everything that happens to us whether it’s bad or good should shine more light on Christ and remind us of what our true purpose is here on this Earth.

Remember our point? God loves everyone equally, and He loves us enough that he sent His son to die for us, to suffer for our own sins, than allow us to suffer.

When God told the unbelievers in Ninevah what to do through Jonah and warned them of their coming destruction, He was quick to forgive them and change His mind as soon as they repented. God does approach unbelievers differently than believers, but His ultimate goal is the same: He wants all of us to life peaceful lives of service to others while we’re living on this Earth and then He wants us, His workers and laborers, to rest in Heaven with him for eternity afterwards. (Rom. 12:18)
He wanted that for Jonah, and He wanted that for Ninevah. He wants that for Christians and He wants that for non-Christians. Just because He treats each group differently doesn’t mean He wants anything less than the best for both groups of his creation. He wants the unbelievers to repent and allow themselves to be saved, and He wants Christians to continue following His will so that they don’t lose their saved status. Just as a parent may discipline one child one way, but may discipline another child in another way, God disciplines Christians, those who accept Him as their father, in one way, and He disciplines the unbelievers, the people who don’t accept Him as their father, in another way. However, His end goal is the same.

If we read the story of Jesus, in the first four books of the New Testament, we will quickly see that Jesus died on the cross for many deep, complicated reasons, but we’re not going to get into them in this study. Right now, I just want us to focus on a couple. First of all, when we sin, we are essentially choosing to walk into a minefield. Satan has laid the Earth thick with all kinds of traps, and when we walk in sin, we are risking spiritual injury and eventually spiritual death. However, when we choose to follow Christ, we are essentially picking up a free map that will guide us through the traps so that we can reach our destination alive and well. Jesus died to give us that map. Jesus essentially jumped, both feet first, into a trap set by Satan so that he could get that map to us. He gave his life physically so that we wouldn’t have to die spiritually. Jesus died so that we can be saved. That’s the first reason I want to mention.

The second reason that I want to talk about Jesus dying is that he died not because he sought out a way to die, as if he were suicidal or something, but that he died because he practiced what he preached. He physically died for what he taught because we, the human race, killed his human body. When we give everything that we have in service to others, others can and probably will make our lives difficult at times out of jealousy or spite. They may even put us to death, who knows. But Jesus brought us a new promise, a new testament. He brought us something that replaced the difficult and legalized Old Law – he brought us a New Law that doesn’t rely on sacrificing animals for no reason other than God says so, it doesn’t rely on making sure we’re free all day Saturday just because God said so, it doesn’t rely on any of those physical things. This New Law relies only on God’s grace. We are saved only by His grace – we don’t have a list of laws that we have to follow to earn God’s favor, or anything else like that. We already have God’s favor. All of us. He is metaphorically standing right in front of you as you approach that minefield handing you the same map that he offers everyone else in here tonight. Even so, we must each accept God’s favor and do what He says in order to be saved by His grace. Will we accept His grace by accepting his roadmap to guide us through life?

If we don’t, He won’t make us take it. He never has and He never will. If one of us walks out into that minefield without a map and dies, that’s that individual's fault, not His. We punish ourselves when we choose to sin. When God told Jonah to go talk to Ninevah, Ge told them, in Jonah chapter 1, verse 2 “Arise, go to Ninevah, that great city, and cry out against it; for their wickedness has come up before Me.” Jonah knew that they were walking into a minefield, and he tells them in chapter 3 that “Yet forty days, and Ninevah shall be overthrown!” At the end of chapter 3, starting in verse 9, we see that God was going to destroy Ninevah because of their great sin, but he warned them over a month in advance so they could turn from their ways and accept his grace.  God loved them and he wanted them to repent! The threat of punishment was intended to be an incentive to persuade them to accept His grace and the same is true for us today. (2 Pet 3:9)

God warns us every day, and the warnings are all in the Bible. Do you want to hear a prophet? Do you want to see miracles happen? Do you want proof that God loves you and wants what’s best for you? It’s all in the Bible, one of, if not the most easily accessible book in the world. It’s in the map that He made for you so you can avoid losing your soul.

If you’re a Christian, you already have that map. If you’re wandering through the minefield of life, using your own instincts and judgements instead of following God’s directions, you’re walking such a painful, disappointing path that will leave you with nothing but broken promises and regrets. Sin promises so much, but it never delivers anything more than disappointment, both in this life and in the next. If you’re a Christian and you’re out wandering around, take out that map and look at it! Arrive healthy and well at your destination. Tell others around you that they need to take the map from God too, so they can also arrive safely in Heaven someday. If you need to make a change, stop waiting around and do it before it's too late. God is giving you a chance right now to do whatever it is you need to do.

If you aren’t a Christian, then you haven’t taken that roadmap. Your life may be going just fine now, and you may not even know that you’re spiritually injured or that you’ve fallen into one of Satan’s traps. If you’re familiar with Greek mythology, think of the Sirens. Sirens, in Greek mythology, were beautiful yet dangerous creatures, who looked like beautiful women. They would stand on the islands of the sea and sing beautiful songs, beckoning to the sailors who hadn’t seen women in days to come and see them, but little did the sailors know that there were rocks submerged under the water around the islands. When the sailors approached the islands, they were shipwrecked and then the Sirens would devour the naïve sailors that allowed themselves to be caught up in their trap. Similarly, just because you think you’re pursuing a noble goal or because you don’t think you’ve fallen into one of life’s traps doesn’t mean that you haven’t. You just haven’t died yet, or you’ve been injured and you haven’t felt the pain yet.

The only way to know is to take that map and look at it, then stop and examine yourself. Examine your life and see your life through the eyes of God. Don’t you think it’s time to become a Christian? Don’t you think it’s time to get up on the road, away from the dangerous traps of life, and take the easy path? Believe it or not, being a Christian is actually so much easier than not being a Christian because you’re guaranteed, without even a shadow of a doubt, that you’ll live in peace and harmony forever. Even if you face difficulties in this life, once you die, you’ll literally be happy forever. You’re guaranteed protection from the all-powerful God, you’re guaranteed eternal happiness, and you also have the power to share that with anyone whom you persuade to also take that map. It’s all up to you. Will you choose the easy way and become a child of God, taking the narrow, but well-lit and trap-free path, or will you take the hard path and keep trying to navigate the roadless, directionless darkness, crossing your fingers that you don’t end up in a trap?

If you would like to learn more about salvation, or you would like to talk with someone about Christ, please contact me on Facebook and I'd be happy to talk and listen. If I can’t meet your needs, then we can find someone who can. It doesn’t matter if you never really considered being a Christian or if you’ve been worshipping God for decades, everyone wants you to be saved. I’ll stay up all night talking with you if that’s what it takes – the people that are Christians have chosen to be Christians because we want everyone else to be more important than ourselves. Your needs come before anything I might have planned or anything that any other true Christian has planned. If you want to talk about Christ, and you want to make a positive change in your life to gain the hope of heaven, there is nothing more important in the entire world right now. If you’re a Christian and you need something, or if you’re not a Christian and you want to take the map that’s been offered to you, once again, just get in contact with me and we'll do whatever we need to do to get you where you need to be.

Learn from the story of Jonah.


In Christian love,
Ethan