Busted!!!
Jonah 1:7-10
Introduction
The Prophet Jonah was a fugitive, running from God and the call upon his life. He was trying to keep a low profile, heading way out of town, saying as little as possible, and sleeping deep inside the ship he had boarded. But God hurled a great storm after his runaway preacher, intending not only to wake up Jonah, but as we find in our text, to call out Jonah as well.
God had every intention of bringing to light Jonah’s sin and rebellion, of putting Jonah in a place where he would just have to confess that the mess he and his shipmates were in was all his fault. To put it another way, God was going to “bust” Jonah, and expose him for what he was. Though this was, no doubt, unpleasant for Jonah, it was in no way unkind on the part of God.
In fact, all of God’s efforts to track Jonah down and turn him around from his sinful rebellion were generous acts of grace. That awkward, fearful moment when all the other sailors were glaring at Jonah – his gig was up, and everyone knew he was the one at fault – that was a good moment, even if Jonah didn’t think so at the time.
If we belong to Jesus Christ, our heavenly Father will not let us slink around silently in our sin for too long.
At some point, He will turn the spotlight on us; He will “bust” us, and bring us to the place where we have to confess, “It’s me. I’m the problem.”
Though that is hard place to be, we learn from Jonah’s story that it is also a helpful place to be, both for ourselves and for the sake of those around us.
Consider what we learn from this stormy section of Jonah’s story. For one thing, we are reminded here that:
- GOD CAN POINT THE FINGER AT YOU
Jonah may have been trying to sneak off unnoticed, but God was going to make it clear in the middle of that raging storm just who the storm was meant for.
The text says that the frightened sailors recognized this storm was more than just a typical squall, and they described it in verse 7 as “evil”.
They determined to figure out who was the cause of it, and God would make it clear which one was the culprit.
In a similar way, God doesn’t mind pointing you out and calling you out, exposing what is going on in your life when you, like Jonah, are not where you need to be.
Notice how this happened in Jonah’s story. For one thing, we see here:
- The Method That Was Used- Notice what the sailors decided in verse 7. The text says, “And they said every one to his fellow, Come, and let us cast lots, that we may know for whose cause this evil is upon us…”
The casting of lots was something akin to rolling dice. It was a practice used by all sorts of folks in that day as a way of letting their god, or gods, whatever the case may be, speak to them and guide them. We even find the people of the one, true God doing this throughout the Old Testament, all the way up into the book of Acts in the New Testament.
The thinking was that God was sovereign enough and powerful enough to control the way the lots fell. In our day, we would say he was able to control which numbers came up on the dice as they were tossed.
I wonder; do you really believe that God is able to move in something as seemingly random as the roll of a dice? Do you believe in a God whose control over the universe is such that he can manipulate and move the smallest details to accomplish His will and make Himself known?
Proverbs 16:33 says this: “The lot is cast into the lap; but the whole disposing thereof is of the LORD.” The idea is that God is in fact sovereign enough to control even the casting of the lot and the roll of the dice.
The implication of this is that your life is never the random outcome of a series of equally random events. Life is ordered, even down to the minute details, by the Christ who is over it all.
He can use that sovereign control to bless you, and if need be, He can use that sovereign control to bust you. The lot fell on Jonah, and not accidentally.
With that in mind, as God worked to single out Jonah, consider not only the method that was used, but think also about:
- The Message That Was Understood- Again, verse 7 tells us that the mariners decided to cast lots in order to try and figure out which one had angered his god enough to send the mother of all storms after him.
So they cast the lots, and lo and behold, the lot fell on Jonah. Though pagans had cast the lots, providence had controlled it.
The message was clear to everyone on the ship, including Jonah. When the lot fell on Jonah, I wonder if his mind didn’t recall a verse he probably learned when he was just a boy. In Numbers 32:23, Moses had taught the people of God, saying, “…be sure your sin will find you out.”
On the middle of a ship, hundreds of miles from his home, in front of a bunch of pagan sailors, sin came to light as God pointed the finger at Jonah.
When it comes to sin in our lives, the promise of Scripture is that what we confess to God He will cover. It will be gone and removed, as far as He is concerned. But, what we try to cover up, God will uncover and reveal it. He will shine the light on it, expose it, and point the finger at you for your sin.
I saw a program on television not too long ago entitled “I (Almost) Got Away With It.” No one has ever got away with un-confessed sin in their lives. No one has even almost got away with it.
If you belong to Jesus, then your Father loves you, and knows that what you need is to get away from your sin, not get away with it. With that in mind, as we look further at this section in Jonah, we learn not only that God can point the finger at you, but we learn also secondly that:
- GOD CAN PULL THE FACTS FROM YOU
Originally, God had called Jonah to go to Nineveh and preach on His behalf, but so far Jonah hasn’t done any preaching.
For that matter, as far as the text is concerned, Jonah hasn’t said anything at all. He has been silent, but God is about to break Jonah’s silence.
God was leading Jonah toward confession, which begins here in verse 9, and is completed a few moments later in verse 12.
King David, who got caught up in a nasty sex scandal, and subsequent murder and cover-up, also had to be brought by God to a place of confession. He talked about his experience in Psalm 32. In the third verse of that Psalm he wrote, “When I kept silence, my bones waxed old through my roaring all the day long.”
David’s silence was killing him. God wanted confession and honesty from His king, and when He got it, David’s life was turned around.
Like Jonah and David, maybe you’ve been quiet for too long. Maybe sin and rebellion in your life have shut your mouth. If so, you need to know that God has ways to make you talk.
He knows that confession is good for your soul, and He works to bring you to the place where you will tell the truth.
Notice this in Jonah’s story. For one thing, notice:
- The Interrogation Jonah Received
Look back at the text and notice verse 8. After the lot fell upon Jonah, the men were not too quick to indict him. Instead, they began to interrogate him.
They said, “…Tell us, we pray thee, for whose cause this evil is upon us; What is thine occupation? and whence comest thou? what is thy country? and of what people art thou?”
The sailors probably didn’t realize it, but the same God that had intercepted Jonah with the storm was now indicting him through their questions.
Notice they didn’t ask, “What did you do?” The truth is; the real problem was what Jonah had not done. They asked him, “What is your job?” The answer to that question was “prophet.” Jonah was a prophet, and God reminded him of it in the words of these pagan sailors.
“Where did you come from?” they asked. Again, Jonah had come from Israel, the place where God had called him, and even more specifically, he had come from Nineveh, the place he should have been going.
They asked him about his country and people as well, questions that would have reminded Jonah that He belonged to God as one of God’s chosen people.
You see; God knew just what Jonah needed to hear on the deck of that storm-tossed ship. God spoke just the words that were needed to cut Jonah’s heart. I know some of you think that sometimes I’ve been reading your mail or eaves dropping outside of your house. You think I had inside information when I prepared my sermon the week before.
You assume that I am talking just to you, when the reality is that it is not me. I don’t know as much about you as you think. But there is a God who knows everything about you.
He often (I pray so) speaks to you through me and others. He knows just what you need to hear. As God began to pull the facts from Jonah, notice not only the interrogation Jonah received, but notice also:
- The Information Jonah Revealed- Notice how Jonah responded to the interrogation he received from the sailors. These are Jonah’s first words in this book that bears his name.
Jonah said in verse 9, “…I am an Hebrew; and I fear the LORD, the God of heaven, which hath made the sea and the dry land.”
While this is not Jonah’s full confession, which comes a few verses later, this is where true confession always begins; with an acknowledgement of who you are, whose you are, and what you know to be true.
The reality is that Jonah should have given this kind of testimony in Nineveh, but instead, Jonah ran from his call and from His God.
But now, God has cornered and confronted his servant and Jonah has reached the place where he has no choice but to open his mouth and tell the truth!
There may be some of you this morning who are trying your hardest to get away from the truth that you know lives inside of you. God has called you, but you are acting like you didn’t hear Him. Jesus has claimed you – you belong to Him and are a part of His family – but you are trying your best to act like you are your own person, beholden to no one.
So long as you keep silent, God is going to keep chasing you and cornering you. People are going to keep saying things that remind you of who He is and who you are.
Somewhere, somehow, the Lord is going to open your mouth and make you tell the truth. He is going to bring you to the place of confession.
As the storm pounded on the head of this runaway, rebellious preacher, he might have felt as if God was waterboarding him.
And yet, this was not torture. This was grace. God just wanted Jonah to open his mouth and tell the truth, which was good for not only Jonah, but everyone else as well. That leads me to a third thing we draw from this scene. We learn here not only that God can point the finger at you, and God can pull the facts from you, but notice also that:
III. GOD CAN PUT THE FAULT ON YOU
So, Jonah finally opened his mouth. He said what he should have been willing to say in Nineveh. And notice what happens in the text. Verse 10 says, “Then were the men exceedingly afraid, and said unto him, Why hast thou done this? For the men knew that he fled from the presence of the LORD, because he had told them.”
Jonah is now clearly the fall guy. God has hunted him down and singled him out, and everyone standing on the stormy deck of that cracking ship knows he is the problem.
And yet, there is an interesting twist here that reminds us of why God wants to bring us to this same place of confession and guilt ourselves.
For one thing, notice with me:
- The Reality of Jonah’s Guilt- Back in verse 4, we read that the Lord hurled out this great whirlwind that was now threatening to sink this ship with everyone on it.
But in verse 10, the mariners have figured out enough of the situation to look Jonah in the eye and say, “Why have you done this?”
Jonah’s God was the creator of this storm, but Jonah’s rebellion had been the cause of it. Jonah’s sin was the real reason they were all on the verge of drowning.
There are some of you who still want to blame God for everything going on in your life, or, you just don’t want to take the blame for yourself. You curse the wind and the rain, and when folks look at the mess you are in, you act like you are as surprised as they are that it is storming in your life.
While it is true that not every storm in life is a result of sin, as the story of Job reveals, the story of Jonah reminds us that many times they are.
When that is the case, what needs to happen is for us to confess our sin and own up to the fact that the stormy weather is as much our own doing as it is God’s blowing.
What we find then is that place of confession and owning up to who and what we are is exactly where God wants us to be, and where God can use us. Let me explain.
Notice not only the reality of Jonah’s guilt, but as the Lord put the fault on him, we see here also:
- The Result of Jonah’s Guilt- Look again at verse 10. It says, “Then were the men exceedingly afraid, and said unto him, Why hast thou done this? For the men knew that he fled from the presence of the LORD, because he had told them.”
Notice that these men were now “exceedingly afraid”. They had been scared to death already, but now the fear has changed from the storm to the Lord who had sent the storm.
The writer tells us in this verse that Jonah had at some point told these fellows he was fleeing from the presence of the Lord.
Apparently, they had not realized the seriousness of that and the strength of Jonah’s God until this moment. Now, they feared Jonah’s God the way Jonah should have back in Israel.
There is an important principle here that I want you to see. It is at the moment of Jonah’s honest confession, hunted down and cornered by His persistent God that these men’s eyes were opened to just who Jonah’s God really is.