Bottom line up front: Obedience to God is never wrong.

Historical Context: Like a lot of Soldiers, I’m a history nerd. I love to read history, and military history fascinates me. I especially love war memoirs. You can see into the lives of Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen, and Marines from each generation, and you see life through their eyes as they fought in their times, too. And I love biblical history, too, especially the history surrounding Jonah and what God labored to teach Jonah.

If it’s been a bit since you read Jonah, it’s set in the 700s B.C. in what in present-day Iraq and Kuwait. God was determined to save a rebellious people, then as now. And then as now, God sent his man to proclaim a simple message: Repent of your sins and look to the promise of the gospel. There was one huge obstacle, however. Jonah was self-absorbed man and a bad prophet. He wanted grace for himself but judgment for others.

He fled God, but God had to remind Jonah that He was smarter than ole Jonah. Eventually, Jonah fulfilled his mission in Nineveh, but only after a lot of bellyaching (sorry, couldn’t resist the pun). Jonah was preserved for three days and nights in the belly of the great whale. And just like Christ would experience, after three days, Jonah was delivered upon the land again. Even after Nineveh repented and God saved thousands of former rebels, Jonah was still self-absorbed and angry. It is not inaccurate to say that Jonah acted like a petulant child; Jonah worshiped Jonah much of the time.

Encouragement: Obedience to God is never wrong. Does God send His people difficult missions? Of course. Going into the hedgerows and highways with the message of repentance and faith is not an easy thing, not if you do it faithfully. But God is a Savior by nature. He saves us from His wrath via of executing His wrath upon God the Son, the Christ. That’s the whole point of the doctrine of the substitutionary atonement. We’re to obey the Lord and trust Him for the results.