0227. Jonah Pursued by a Storm

Jonah Pursued by a Storm

"But the Lord sent out a great wind upon the sea, * * so that the ship was like to be broken" (Jon_1:4).

1. The first thing we have before us is the faithfulness of God toward a faithless Prophet. Why did not God let Jonah go his way, just as Jonah was letting Nineveh go its way? Because the God Who watches over His saints never slumbers nor sleeps. "Great is His faithfulness." He says: "I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee." Jonah is running away from God, and God is going right after him, to bring him back to obedience.

2. And how does God pursue His runaway Prophet? He sends after him a great wind, a veritable Euroclydon, until the ship was about to be broken.

It is still true, "Whom the Lord loveth, He chasteneth." The only way to get some people back to God, is by winds and waves of trouble and distress.

Illustration: An artist, painting the dome of a great cathedral, stood on his high scaffold admiring the beauty of his work, forgetting, withal, that he was stepping back, dangerously near the edge of his scaffold. His assistant saw his peril and quick as thought, he leaped forward and struck his brush across the picture. The artist caught his hand in amazement, and cried: "Why did you spoil my picture?" "I did it to save your life," was the reply.

How many times is it necessary for God to spoil some pretty picture of ours in order that He may call us back to His loving favor.

3. Another lesson is seen in this, that the disobedience of the Prophet caused the whole ship, and doubtless many other ships, to be in danger. It is written: "No man liveth unto himself."

If the backslider could only sin without bringing some disaster upon some one else it would be bad enough, but when he endangers the welfare of others then let him stop, and look, and listen.

In the Gospels we read: "And there were other little boats." The storm on Galilee affected them as well as the boat in which the disciples sat. Let us remember the "other little boats."

4. Let us look a moment at this "sleeper." Asleep to his responsibility; asleep to the cries of the Ninevites; asleep to the dangers of the mariners. What a picture of a prayerless believer we have here! The others, the heathen aboard ship are praying, but Jonah is sleeping. What a God-dishonoring sleeper! "What meanest thou, O sleeper? arise and call upon thy God."

Autor: R.E. NEIGHBOUR