Check Your Attitude - Jonah 1

Now the word of the Lord came unto Jonah the son of Amittai, saying, Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and cry against it; for their wickedness is come up before me. Jonah 1:1-2. 

The book of Jonah is a love story. God's love for Jonah and God's love for a lost world. Because God loved Jonah, He called him to be a part of this love story, and yet Jonah disobeyed God. There are four factors involved in this marvelous love story, and these four factors are given to us in Jonah 1:1-2.

The first factor is God's work. Our Lord Jesus Christ said, My Father has been working and I am working. We must work the works of Him that sent me while it is yet day. What is God's work? God's work is the work of winning a lost world to salvation. That's why the church is here. God has not left us here for the purpose of just fighting battles or carrying burdens. God's left us here to be a blessing. God's left us here to use our hands and our feet, to use our lips and our eyes and our ears and all of our being to minister the gospel of Jesus Christ to a lost world. Are you involved in God's work? Are you praying for the lost? Are you praying for those who minister to the lost? Are you giving that people might come to know Christ? God's great concern is for a lost world, and this is why we are here. 

Factor number two in this love story is God's word. Now the word of the Lord came unto Jonah. You see, our God is a God who speaks. Throughout the book of Jonah, you'll find that when God speaks, things happen. In Jonah 1:4, God speaks to the wind and the wind begins to blow, and there's a mighty tempest on the sea. In Jonah 1:15, once again, He speaks to the sea and to the wind, and it ceases its raging. He's a God who can speak to nature. He speaks to the great fish in Jonah 1:17, and the fish swallows Jonah. He speaks to the fish again in Jonah 2:10, and the fish regurgitates Jonah. Our God is a God who can speak to the wind and to the waves and to the fish. He even speaks to a gourd in Jonah 4. He prepares the gourd, and the gourd grows up and shelters Jonah. And then God speaks even to a lowly little worm in Jonah 4:7, and that worm causes the gourd to die. Then God speaks to another wind in Jonah 4:8, and this hot wind blows upon Jonah. Is it not interesting that God speaks to nature and nature obeys; God speaks to a man and the man disobeys? Everything in nature obeys God. Even the stormy winds fulfill His word. But when God speaks to man, man says, "Well, I don't think I'll obey." And Jonah decided to go in the opposite direction. Today, while you hear His voice, harden not your heart. God's word is the second factor in this love story. And God's work means getting out God's word to a lost world. 

Now what's God saying to us today? Well, He says, all authority in heaven and on earth is given unto me. Go! Get going. Go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature. Repentance and remission of sins shall be preached beginning at Jerusalem. As the Father has sent me, so send I you. Ye shall receive power when the Holy Spirit is come upon you and ye shall be witnesses unto me unto the uttermost parts of the earth. He says to us, get going, because the word of God is what fulfills the work of God. 

God's work, factor number one. God's word, factor number two. Now factor number three: God's worker. Now the word of the Lord came unto Jonah, the son of Amittai, saying. God spoke to a servant. God spoke to His prophet Jonah. Jonah was a prophet in the palace of Jeroboam II. He was sort of the court chaplain, we might assume. And he was a well-known prophet. He had prophesied victory for Jeroboam, and this had happened. Nineveh needed Jonah. Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and cry against it for their wickedness is come up before me. Fourteen times in the book of Jonah, you'll find the word "great." And whenever Nineveh is referred to, it's called a great city. And it was a great city. The city and its suburbs, really four cities put together, had a circumference of about sixty miles. They had a huge wall around this arrangement of cities. Probably a million or more people lived in Nineveh at that time. And it was a great city. Great in history and great in size and great in splendor and great in power, great in sin. And Nineveh needed Jonah because Nineveh was a wicked city. 

But you know what? Jonah needed Nineveh. You see, the will of God is the expression of the love of God for us. Jonah was a very patriotic Jew. The Ninevites were enemies of the Jews, and Jonah did not want the enemy to succeed. He had good theology. As you study the book of Jonah, you'll discover this man has wonderful theology. He knows all about God. He can quote scripture by the yard. And he has his theology straight, but he's very narrow. He doesn't believe in bringing the message out to anybody else. He's selfish. And God says to Jonah, I want you to go to Nineveh. Nineveh needed Jonah, but Jonah needed Nineveh. This is why God has put you where you are. You need that job. You need that exposure. You need that challenge. God was going to put something into Jonah and bring something out of Jonah that He never could have accomplished had He left Jonah where he was. Oh, I'm just like you. I don't like things to change. I like to get comfortable with my circumstances and comfortable with my work and wake up in the morning and say, "Well, I can handle things today." And then along comes a challenge from God and I say, "Lord, I can handle this." And He says, "How else are you going to grow?" God uses people to accomplish His work. 

Factor number one: God's work, winning a lost world. Factor number two: God's word, the word of the Lord came. Factor number three: God's worker, the word of the Lord came unto Jonah. Factor number four: God's will. Jonah 1:2, Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and cry against it; for their wickedness is come up before me. God gives to Jonah the specific details of what He wants him to do. Where He wants him to go, when He wants him to go, what he wants to do. The will of God is not something we have to mysteriously search into. God shows us what He wants us to do. And then as we obey His will, He reveals more to us. The problem is Jonah did not have the right attitude toward the will of God. 

In Jonah 1, he was afraid of God's will. "Oh God, if you loved me, you wouldn't send me to Nineveh. The Ninevites are wicked people. They skin people alive. They are terrible people." Arise and go to Nineveh. Don't be afraid of God's will. In Jonah 2, Jonah wanted God's will only because he was in trouble. He was in an emergency. Oh, I've met people like that. They get into an automobile accident or sickness or surgery or something else. "Oh, I want the will of God." Why didn't you want the will of God before? "Well, I didn't need it. I was afraid of it." Yeah, but now you want it because you're in trouble. And Jonah ran to God because it was an emergency. Jonah 3, he obeyed the will of God because he had to. He's afraid not to. God might chasten him again. And there are many people who today are doing God's will only because they have to. They don't do it from their heart because they love God. They can't say with the Lord Jesus, "My meat is to do the will of Him that sent me." I am nourished by the will of God. I enjoy the will of God just like sitting down to a wonderful meal. No, no, they just do the will of God because they have to. In Jonah 4, Jonah learned the most important lesson in life. He learned to love the will of God. He learned to do what God wanted him to do because of his love for people and his love for the Lord. God's will. These are the four factors that are involved in this great love story. God's work—He wants to win the lost in this world. Are you a part of God's work? God's word—He tells us in His word what His will is. Are you in the word of God? Do you believe the word of God? God's worker—are you available to do what God wants you to do? Now the word of the Lord came unto... put your own name there. Arise, go to... where God wants you to go. The fourth factor is God's will. Do you really want God's will? Are you afraid of it? Are you running away from it? Are you obeying it because you're afraid or are you obeying the will of God because you really love Him? Ephesians 6:6, doing the will of God from the heart.

God's work depends upon God's workers, and God's workers have to do God's will using God's word. That's what we discovered from the first two verses of the book of Jonah. In Jonah 1, we find Jonah afraid of God's will. He's running away, and he learns the lesson of God's providence that you can't run away from God, that God has everything in control. Consider now the losses that Jonah experienced because he refused to obey the will of God. These are the same losses that you and I will experience if we try to run away from the will of God. 

First of all, he lost his high purpose. God said, arise and go to Nineveh. But Jonah 1:3 says, but Jonah rose up not to go to Nineveh, to flee unto Tarshish, the opposite direction, from the presence of the Lord. And he went down to Joppa, and he found a ship going to Tarshish; so he paid the fare and went down into it to go with them unto Tarshish from the presence of the Lord. Jonah was too smart a man to know or to think that he could run away and go to some place where God couldn't see him. When we're told that he left the presence of the Lord, twice in Jonah 1:3 and you also find it in Jonah 1:10—he had told the men that he fled from the presence of the Lord—this phrase means he resigned his commission. A prophet stood in the presence of the Lord. A prophet would say, "In the name of the Lord before whom I stand." And Jonah said, "I'm no longer going to stand in the presence of the Lord. I'm going to go at my own way." Now everything in nature has a purpose to fulfill. And you'll notice in the book of Jonah that everything did fulfill God's will. The wind, the waves, the worm, the big fish, the boats, the dice, the gourd—everything in this book fulfills the will of God except Jonah. And Jonah has the most to lose. He lost his high purpose. What was his high purpose? To serve God and to do God's will. It's interesting to note that the heathen sailors tried to rescue Jonah. In Jonah 1:13, nevertheless the men rowed hard to bring her to land; but they could not, for the sea raged and was tempestuous against them. Jonah said, "Throw me in." They said, "Oh no, before we'll do that we'll try harder to get to land." Isn't this something? The heathen sailors were willing to save the preacher, but the preacher wasn't willing to go to the heathen to share the message that God had given to him. You know, sometimes unsaved people put us to shame by their devotion and their dedication. So Jonah was a creature in God's creation. He should have obeyed the Creator. Furthermore, he was a prophet whom God had called. But before we criticize him, let's stop and ask ourselves, are we doing all that we ought to do to reach a lost world for Jesus Christ? We are creatures in God's creation. We are human beings. We are our brother's keeper. We are certainly a part of the New Covenant as believers in Jesus Christ. We have been called to serve Him in one way or another. Are we fulfilling that purpose? Jonah's first loss was he lost his high purpose. He's no longer living to serve God. He's living to please himself. 

In Jonah 1:4, I notice he had a second loss: he lost the voice of God. But the Lord sent out a great wind into the sea, and there was a mighty tempest in the sea so that the ship was in danger of being broken. Why did God send a wind, a storm? Because Jonah would no longer listen to the word. You see, when we won't listen to God's words, then we have to listen to God's works. And sometimes God has to speak to us very, very loudly using the storm and the wind. God could no longer talk to him through the word. God had to speak to him through the storm. God even had to speak to him through the heathen sailors. In Jonah 1:6, so the shipmaster came to him and said unto him, "What meanest thou, oh sleeper? Arise, call upon thy God, if so be that God will think upon us that we perish not." This word "perish" keeps showing up here. "That we perish not." In Jonah 1:14 they said, "Wherefore they cried unto the Lord and said, 'We beseech thee, oh Lord, we beseech thee, let us not perish for this man's life and lay not upon us innocent blood, for thou oh Lord hast done as it pleased thee.'" They were perishing. Do you realize that today there's a world filled with people who are perishing? And it's important that you and I get the word out to them. He lost his high purpose and he lost the voice of God. Is God talking to you through His word? Do you hear the voice of God saying, "This is the way, walk ye in it"? 

There was a third loss that he incurred. Jonah 1:5, he lost his spiritual energy. Then the mariners were afraid. The Hebrew word translated "mariners" really means "salts"—the old hands. These experienced sailors. Now experienced sailors don't get frightened in a storm, but this was a very special storm and they knew it. Then the mariners were afraid and cried every man unto his god. That didn't do any good. They cast forth the wares that were in the ship into the sea to lighten it of them. That didn't do any good either; the storm got worse. But Jonah was gone down into the sides of the ship, and he lay and was fast asleep. The Jewish people were not mariners; they were landlubbers. And as such, they weren't too interested in being on a ship in a storm. I'm amazed that Jonah could sleep on that ship in that terrible storm when the mariners were afraid. You see, he lost his spiritual energy. He was sleeping instead of serving. He was selfish. He wasn't sacrificing for others. He wasn't trying to do anything to save even those crew members. He was in danger and didn't realize it. A false security. And did you notice the direction that Jonah is taking? He went down to Joppa. He went down into the ship. He went down into the sides of the ship. When you rebel against the will of God, there's only one way you can go, and that's down. He lost his spiritual energy. 

There's a fourth loss that he incurred. Jonah 1:6-7, he lost his power in prayer. The shipmaster came down and told him to wake up and pray. And apparently he did, but nothing happened because in Jonah 1:7 they said, every one to his fellow, "Come, let us cast lots that we may know for whose cause this evil is upon us." So they cast lots, and the lot fell upon Jonah. Jonah was not praying; he was sleeping. Sounds like the apostles in the garden, doesn't it, when Jesus was praying and they were sound asleep? Now we aren't told that Jonah actually prayed, but we are told that the situation got worse and they had to discover who was to blame. Psalm 66:18 says, If I regard iniquity in my heart, the Lord will not hear me. That means if I know there's sin in my life and I'm keeping it there and I'm protecting it and I'm defending it, God is not going to hear me pray. 

In Jonah 1:8-10, Jonah lost his testimony. They cast lots, and the lot falls upon Jonah. And they say to Jonah, "What's going on?" So he tells them. "I'm a Hebrew. I fear the Lord." You'd never know it. "The God of heaven who made the sea and the dry land." Jonah believed in creation, but he wasn't willing to obey the Creator. And the men asked him, "Why hast thou done this?" And he had told them that he was running away from the will of God. You see, Jonah had a wrong attitude toward service. He thought that service was something you turn on and off. "Today I will serve God, tomorrow I won't serve God." He had a wrong attitude toward witnessing. He thought that witnessing was something you could do whenever you felt like it. We are always serving God. We are always witnessing. We are either good servants or bad servants, good witnesses or bad witnesses. Here's a man who lost his testimony. 

Well, they say, "What should we do?" He says, "Cast me forth into the sea. I know that it's my fault." And it's interesting here, Jonah would rather die than do the will of God. The trouble is he didn't die to self. And that's the tragedy. Had he died to self, had he given himself totally to the Lord, this never would have happened. Well, as I've already mentioned in Jonah 1:13, the heathen sailors did their best to try to save Jonah. And then they cried out to God and said, "Don't blame us for this." And in Jonah 1:15, they took up Jonah and cast him forth into the sea; and the sea ceased from its raging. A miracle took place. He lost his testimony and he almost lost his life. Not because he was devoted to the Lord, but because he was disobedient to the Lord. He'd rather die than serve. It's a dangerous thing to rebel against God. King Saul rebelled against God; he lost his life. Samson rebelled against God; he lost his life. It's possible to disobey God and be chastened to the point where God will take the life. And that's a dangerous thing. Jonah almost lost his life. Then the men feared the Lord exceedingly and offered a sacrifice unto the Lord and made vows. It's rather interesting that God used this experience to convert these heathen to believing in the true and the living God. Well, Jonah didn't lose his life. He lost his high purpose, he lost the voice of God, he lost his spiritual energy, he lost his power in prayer, he lost his testimony, and he almost lost his life. But God in His mercy spared him. The Lord prepared a great fish, and the great fish swallowed up Jonah. And Jonah was in the belly of the great fish three days and three nights. Jonah 1:17. You know why? Because God loved Jonah. And God was more concerned about the worker than He was the work. He knew that Jonah needed to obey. You count the cost of serving God, you'd better count the cost of not serving God. It's far more costly to disobey God than to obey Him. Obey Him and He will bless you. Don't be like Jonah; obey the will of God.