Introduction
The book of Jonah opens with the word of the Lord coming to the Prophet Jonah. His word was, “Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and cry against it; for their wickedness is come up before me.”
In the next verse we find that while Jonah did rise up, he didn’t get up to go to Nineveh. Instead, he tried to run as far from Nineveh as he could think to go. Jonah tried to get away from the call to Nineveh, and from the God who had issued that call. Yet, Jonah, as one of the people of God, and beyond that a prophet of God, should have known that this was a foolish plan.
If we know Jonah’s God, the God of the Bible, then we feel like saying to Jonah at this point, “Where do you think you’re going?” There is a temptation for us to see Jonah’s escape attempt as silly, especially if we know the rest of the story. And yet, if we are honest, we too have often tried to get away from the Lord.
Maybe you didn’t leave town and a jump a ship to a foreign country, but how many times have you tried to dodge God right here where you live, ignoring His voice, avoiding His house, going days on end without reading His Word or speaking His name in prayer?
All the while, you knew He had called you, confronted you with something He wanted you to do, but you kept trying to get away from it. You didn’t run the same way Jonah did, but you resisted God just the same.
The story of Jonah is not a fish story. As I have said, it is a story about the pursuing, relentless, persevering grace of God, and in the case of verse 3, we are reminded that even if we try, we cannot outrun the God whose grace ran us down in the first place.
Think about Jonah’s flight in this text, and consider what it teaches those of us who have tried, or perhaps are still trying to get away from Him and His call upon us. For one thing, Jonah teaches us that:
- YOU CAN’T ESCAPE INTERNAL PROBLEMS
After the Lord called Jonah to go and preach in the big city of Nineveh, the text says in verse 3, “But Jonah rose up to flee unto Tarshish from the presence of the LORD…”
Jonah decided that it was time for a change of scenery. The hill country of Israel was getting a little too stressful, and Nineveh seemed like a terrible place to visit. So, Jonah decided to head to the city of Tarshish.
The catch, however, was that Jonah’s real problem wasn’t a geographical one; it was a theological and a spiritual one.
The problem was not Jonah’s surroundings; it was Jonah’s soul. The problem was within Jonah’s own life, and no matter where he ran, his problem would go with him.
Consider the internal problem of this prophet. For one thing:
- Jonah had a heart problem- God’s will for Jonah was for him to go and preach a stone hard, hell-fire sermon to the people of Nineveh, the capitol city of the Assyrian empire.
But Jonah didn’t want to go to preach in Nineveh, because Jonah knew enough about God to know that if he preached, those folks might just repent, and if they repented, God would show them mercy and withhold judgment.
And Jonah didn’t want God withholding judgment from the Assyrians, because Jonah knew that eventually the Assyrians could overthrow his home country, Israel, and God could use the Assyrians to judge the sins of His own people.
It all boiled down to the fact that Jonah’s heart was not God’s heart. Jonah had his own agenda, which included his own desires and wishes.
When God’s will countered that agenda, Jonah decided to run from the will of God. Yet, Jonah’s rebellious and selfish heart ran right along with him. He wasn’t going to like the will of God any better in Tarshish. His heart wasn’t going to be any more right there than it was in Israel.
Some of you don’t like what God has done, or what He is trying to do in your life right now, and you are doing your best to avoid Him and get away from His call. And yet, the problem is not God’s heart; it’s yours. No matter how long or far you run, you can’t get away from the rebellion and resistance that beats inside your own chest.
Notice not only that Jonah had a heart problem, but think also about the fact that:
- Jonah had a head problem– God said, “Jonah, go to Nineveh and preach to those wicked folks for Me.” Jonah essentially said, “No, thanks,” and headed off to catch a cruise to Tarshish.
Jonah didn’t want to do the will of God. That was his heart problem. But he also had a head problem – that is, there was something wrong with his thinking. Apparently Jonah believed that by declining to do God’s will and running away, he would somehow be disqualified and God would just forget about him and about the whole mission to Nineveh.
He thought God would give up on him and just leave him alone, and that by his refusal he could somehow derail what God had originally wanted to do.
But Jonah’s head was messed up. His thinking was wrong about two particular things. One, he figured wrong when it came to the commitment of God, and secondly, he figured wrong when it came to the control of God.
Jonah may not have been committed to God, but God was eternally committed to Jonah. Jonah belonged to Him and God wasn’t about to give up on His covenant with His child. Moreover, Jonah tried to control the situation by refusing to do the will of God, as if by his disobedience, the whole plan would be scrapped and Nineveh would just go up in flames.
But Jonah was not in control; God was. And while Jonah may have delayed the will of God, he never derailed it.
Maybe you think that if you run long enough and resist hard enough that God will just leave you alone, and that somewhere the whole issue of your obedience and submission to Him will just go away?
If so, you need to check your head. Your thinking is all wrong. If you are His child, He will never give up on you, and if His word has been declared, He will not give up until it is fulfilled.
How many of you have heard the saying, “Wherever you go, there you are”? At first it sounds silly; one of those, “no duh” sort of sayings.
But the truth is that regardless of your location, your surroundings, your circumstances, you are who you are. Like Jonah, you may try to run, but you can’t run away from what is inside of you.
Looking at this text and Jonah’s escape attempt, we realize not only that you can’t escape a problem that is internal, but consider also secondly that:
- YOU CAN’T ESCAPE A UNIVERSAL PRESENCE
Look again at verse 3. We read, “But Jonah rose up to flee unto Tarshish from the presence of the LORD, and went down to Joppa; and he found a ship going to Tarshish: so he paid the fare thereof, and went down into it, to go with them unto Tarshish from the presence of the LORD.”
Twice in that one verse we are told that Jonah was heading to Tarshish to get away from the presence of the Lord. Though he knew better, nevertheless, Jonah tried to get away from God. He tried to get out from under the sight and sound and sense of an omnipresent God. That is something you simply cannot do.
- Notice with me how Jonah tried to escape the presence of the Lord. For one thing, notice:
- Where Jonah was heading- Verse three tells us that Jonah left Israel, traveled to Joppa, the closest port city, and found a ship heading to Tarshish.
While Bible scholars and historians are not exactly sure of the location of the city of Tarshish, most assume that it refers to an ancient city located on the far western coast of what is modern day Spain.
That means that instead of Jonah rising up and making the 500 mile journey east toward Nineveh, Jonah went the opposite way, west, heading to a place some 2,000 miles away.
Jonah tried to go as far away from Nineveh and Israel and God as he possibly could. He never got there, of course, but if even if he had it would not have been far enough.
I have seen folks do as Jonah did in this text, turning their back on God and His people and His house, and going as far the other way as they possibly could.
I’ve seen folks who used to sit on church pews end up on bar stools. I’ve seen folks who used to teach the married couples Sunday school class end up in divorce court.
I’ve seen people get so mad at God and the church that they spend every Sunday for ten years on the couch, swearing they’ll never go back again.
And yet, when they thought they had left the Lord Jesus far behind them, lo and behold He showed up and spoke to them on their bar stool, or in the mess of their second or third marriage, or on one of those Sunday’s when they happened to land on the religious channel while looking for the football game.
What I’m telling you is that you can run as far in the wrong direction as you can think to go, but it will not be too far for the Good Shepherd to track you down or meet you there when you get there. Looking at Jonah’s plan to flee in this passage, consider not only where Jonah was heading, but consider also:
- What Jonah was Hoping- Look at verse 3 again. It says, “But Jonah rose up to flee unto Tarshish from the presence of the LORD…”
Tarshish was the destination on the map, but getting away from God was the design in Jonah’s mind. Jonah wanted to flee from the presence of the Lord.
The word translated “presence” is an interesting word. This word is usually translated as “before”, but many times it is rendered as “face”. In Genesis 4:14, Cain said to God, “…from thy face shall I be hid…”
In other words, Jonah decided he was going to try and get away from the face of the Lord. Imagine someone trying to sneak around behind you, and stay out of your line of sight. That is the picture. It is almost as if Jonah thought God was only looking at Israel, and that Tarshish was somehow out of his peripheral vision.
The problem with this is, as Proverbs 15:3 says, “The eyes of the LORD are in every place…” And Proverbs 5:21 says, “For the ways of man are before the eyes of the LORD, and he pondereth all his goings.”
Before we start to roll our eyes at Jonah, and think him silly for hoping he could get out of the sight of God, how often have you done things behind closed doors or out of town somewhere that you never would have done if people who know you would have seen it?
You know, do you not, that God still saw you? No, your mom wasn’t on that road trip. Your wife wasn’t in that room, but God saw it all – everything! Jonah could not escape the presence of the Lord, even in far-away Tarshish. What makes you think you’ve escaped Him when you shut your door and close your curtains at home?
You can’t play hide-and-go-seek with a sovereign God. He never closes His eyes, and He knows where you are headed before you get there.
Looking at Jonah’s running in this passage, we learn not only that you can’t escape a problem that is internal, and you can’t escape a presence that is universal, but notice with me thirdly that we also find here:
III. YOU CAN’T ESCAPE A SUBSTANTIAL PRICE
Going to Nineveh was something Jonah did not want to do. In his mind, that trip was too much for God to ask of him. Rather than going to Nineveh, Jonah figured it would be easier and better on him to turn and flee the other way.
What Jonah discovered, however, is that while disobedience may seem easier than obedience in the moment, it will always cost you more to flee from God than it does to follow Him.
There is at least a clue to this in our text. Look again at verse 3, and notice with me that:
- There are actual costs- In verse 3, the Holy Spirit tells us that Jonah went first to the port city of Joppa, and there he found a ship heading to Tarshish.
Then, almost in the middle of the verse we find this interesting detail. It says, “…so he paid the fare thereof…”
Jonah could get where he wanted to go, but not without an actual, tangible cost that he would have to pay himself. Someone has rightly suggested that had Jonah gone to Nineveh, the Lord would have taken care of all his expenses. But when you go your own way, you will pay your own way.
It may be that there are actual financial costs. Just ask the prodigal son. God doesn’t mind letting you go broke and hit bottom if it leads to your repentance. It may be there are actual physical costs that you will pay for your rebellion against God. Ask King Uzziah in the Old Testament about the leprosy he carried on his body until the day he died because of his disobedience to God.
Or just ask the girl with the STD, or the man whose liver is failing from his alcoholism. Maybe there will be actual emotional costs that you will have to pay. There are some scars that don’t show on the skin, and some memories that never fully heal.
You can’t escape paying the fare when you run from the Lord. Notice not only that there are actual costs, but consider also that:
- There are additional costs– If you pay close attention, the writer of Jonah is trying to make a point by using a particular word repeatedly in the first part of this story.
We find it twice in verse 3. Did you catch it? Notice the writer said that Jonah went “down” to Joppa. Then again, he went “down into” the ship.
You find a similar reference in verse 5, and then in chapter 2, verse 6, Jonah himself will say, “I went down to the bottoms of the mountains…”
The further Jonah runs from the Lord, the farther down he goes. There were additional costs to this little escape plan beyond what it cost him to get on the boat. There were spiritual costs that couldn’t be quantified in money.
Friend, when you run from God and resist him, you may think you are moving on, or even moving up, but you are only going down, down, down, toward a bottom you can’t even see it yet.
And while the Lord will reach you at the bottom, there are always costs and a price associated with that fall that you can’t calculate in dollars and cents.
The price you’ll pay for running from God never exceeds the grace of God to redeem and rescue from it, as Jonah’s story will tell, but God doesn’t mind letting you go all the way down to the bottom of the sea before intervening. There is a substantial cost to fleeing from God.
Where did Jonah think he was going? Joppa? Tarshish? He is God’s man and He is supposed to be headed to Nineveh. Yet, we know that while he headed away from Nineveh and toward Tarshish, he never made it to Tarshish and ended up in Nineveh. How? Why it was the grace of God, my friend.
Conclusion
Over in the New Testament, it is strange to discover that Jesus chose to identify Himself, not with a great Old Testament prophet like Isaiah, but with our flighty, fleeing friend Jonah. Jesus said that the only sign He would give the stubborn religious crowd of His day was the sign of Jonah the prophet.
It is strange, I say, because of how different Jesus and Jonah appear to be. The Father sent His Son Jesus to earth to seek and to save those who are lost.
Unlike Jonah, Jesus did not run away from this call, but set His face like a flint toward Jerusalem and the place of the skull where He would die on the cross for sinners like you and me.
Are we surprised then that Jesus would identify Himself with a prophet like Jonah? No more surprised, I would say, than we should be that He has identified Himself with sinners and scoundrels like us.
How did that happen? Why, it must be grace! Though we have often tried to outrun Him and outright disobey Him, He has loved us and pursued us with His caring but constant presence.
Knowing this, where do you think you’re going? Why not turn around today, and turn to Him whom you’ve never truly got away from in the first place.
Lesson Prepared By:
Dr. Antione K. Eakins, Sr.
Pastor/Teacher