Principle: Fidelity and faith in the gospel, not humanism.

Context: As we covered in Part 1/5 (https://jonpirtle.com/2024/06/03/lessons-from-jonah-part-1-5/) Jonah was called to be faithful despite human hostility to his message. After all, God called him to go with a message of divine judgment, namely, to “call out against [Nineveh], for their evil had come up before [God]” (Jonah 1:2, ESV). Not exactly a message of sunshine and rainbows. Here was God’s man, and he was charged with a prophetic message of judgment, an oracle of woe aimed to prompt them to repent of sin and trust in the gospel.

And you know Jonah’s initial response. “Nope. Thanks, Lord, but no thanks. I’m out of here.”

 ³ But Jonah rose to flee to Tarshish from the presence of the Lord. He went down to Joppa and found a ship going to Tarshish. So he paid the fare and went down into it, to go with them to Tarshish, away from the presence of the Lord (Jonah 1:3, ESV).

The key word there is away.

God’s Effectual Grace: But what does God do? Does God abandon his cowardly prophet? Does God give up on this prophet who is perverting his profession of faith? No. God uses suffering to call him back to himself:

⁴ But the Lord hurled a great wind upon the sea, and there was a mighty tempest on the sea, so that the ship threatened to break up. ⁵ Then the mariners were afraid, and each cried out to his god. And they hurled the cargo that was in the ship into the sea to lighten it for them. But Jonah had gone down into the inner part of the ship and had lain down and was fast asleep. ⁶ So the captain came and said to him, “What do you mean, you sleeper? Arise, call out to your god! Perhaps the god will give a thought to us, that we may not perish” (Jonah 1:4-6, ESV).

God ordained a storm on the sea. Why? To use pagan sailors, fear, sacrifice, and more to teach Jonah that what is required is faithfulness and obedience.

The pagan sailors confronted Jonah and Jonah finally came clean: “I am a Hebrew, and I fear the LORD, the God of heaven, who made the sea and the dry land” (Jonah 1:9, ESV). Finally, Jonah, finally.

Encouragement & Application: What matters is not our strength but our faith and fidelity to trust the Lord’s strength. God alone saves people. He just uses us fallen, weak-faithed, scared, all-too-human weak vessels in his plan to save a people for himself. Jonah was far from perfect. Like me, like you, Jonah blew it many days. But Jonah was learning a lesson (albeit slowly) that Jonah did not have the power to save anyone. God alone does that. Jonah’s duty (and the duty of all Christian pilgrims) is to be faithful to show up and do the hard work, and watch God redeem people from every nation under heaven. We dare not trust in human efforts to redeem anyone; only God redeems. Our job is just to be faithful to him who calls.