AT a time when Jonah should have been active to help and be a powerful witness for the Lord, he was sleeping the sleep of exhaustion, because of conflict with God over his disobedience. In this situation we find the captain of the ship coming to Jonah, and giving him a rebuke. Jonah was found sleeping when he should have been awake and active. Jonah, when awake, found himself facing a just rebuke which went much deeper than the captain of the ship imagined. It did not matter that the rebuke of the captain was prompted by fear and self interest, nor that it was an expression of ignorance. Jonah found his Christian soul shamed and challenged deeply. He was brought sharply to see all this conflict with the Lord as it truly was. He found himself not only bowing in shame before this worldly man, but shamed before God whom he had let down so badly.

THE RESULT OF DISOBEDIENCE.

Although the believer knows that sin and disobedience can’t alter the acceptance with God we have in Christ, and that the status of a child of God is not lost, yet there are sad consequence of disobedience and sin.

The first consequence is a bad conscience. Because of the new holy nature within us, when we depart from the will of God, this new nature is hurt and offended, and there is acute discomfort in the soul. This is present all through a time of disobedience, and even though when emotions run high which drive us on in disobedience we can hide from this discomfort, there comes a time when we are brought face to face with what we have done, and then we feel this discomfort, together with shame. It is because of this we become weak in soul, and this effects our bodies, and we become tired and weary to serve the Lord, and from this, real sickness of body sometimes follows. This is not a pleasant place to be, but Jonah found himself there.

Then secondly, a bad conscience weakens our witness. How can we call on others to repent and turn to the Lord when we are living sinfully. Satan comes and taunts us by telling us how hypocritical it is to speak to others when we are so disobedient. A bad conscience gives the devil leverage to assault our faith, so that our hold on the gospel is weaken, and then Satan can come and cast doubts into our minds concerning God’s love for us. Satan also comes and suggests to us that our unworthiness that we perceive so clearly means God will not hear us, and that we must reform ourselves in some measure before we dare to ask the Lord for his favour. By this Satan turns us from grace to works, and from Christ to ourselves. This terrible condition is not possible when we are living close to Jesus. Then, though we know ourselves to be sinners, the work of Christ for us is balm to our souls and we rest at peace with him. Wilful disobedience destroys our peace, and we find it difficult to lay hold of the gospel, because faith is weakened.

Then thirdly, when we are disobedient the Holy Spirit is grieved and withdraws the consciousness of his presence from us. He has not left us altogether for Christ promised he would never leave us or forsake us, but we do know that he hides his face from us, and the sense of his presence is withdrawn. Because of this, the power of God is also withdrawn from us, and our own weakness becomes predominant, and we can hardly hold on to faith ourselves, let alone speak to others of the grace of God. Although we may still witness, yet the power of the Spirit who alone gives blessings, and brings healing to the soul, is removed, and our ministry is arid and ineffective.

All this Jonah became conscious of as he was woken up by the captain of the ship. He had lost his confidence in God. He stood ashamed before the captain’s rebuke. He was taken over with the inner rebuke of God within. God used the rebuke of the captain to bring Jonah to his spiritual senses, and to see what he had cloaked by his determined disobedience.

What a sorrowful thing it is when the world comes and can rebuke the believer and the believer knows the rebuke is just, and so has to remain silent, hanging the head in shame. The shame is heightened because there comes a realisation and understanding of how we have let down the Lord who had loved us so much. This is worse than the rebuke of the world, and happy is the Christian who feels this is so, and so does not sin further by reacting badly to the world’s rebuke and hitting back. The world may not understand the believer’s problem, but at such times the world reveals itself strong and better than the child of God, and this is to our shame, and the sorrow of Christ. Sin in the believer always brings shame upon God in the end. We are reminded of Peter here when he denied his discipleship. He hung his head in shame when Jesus looked at him with sorrow, and he went out and wept bitterly. But let us see the face of Jesus in this looking on Peter. It was the look of love and compassion in the eyes of Jesus that hurt most in the heart of Peter, for in that look Jesus was conveying the depth of his love for him. In that look of Jesus, Jesus was revealing his cross where he was bearing the guilt of that sin, with all the others Peter had committed. So it is with us.

THE HAND OF GOD.

The fact of the matter was that however shaming this rebuke of the world was to Jonah, God was using it as a ministration in order to bring Jonah back into the way of surrender and obedience. This seems strange when we are able to see that the motives behind the captain rebuking Jonah was prompted by self interest and fear, but God uses strange means to keep the redeemed soul in his love. So the captains rebuke came as a word from the Lord, and this was the beginning of Jonah’s return to the way of obedience and life.

God was in the shame that Jonah felt. Here is a work of God which is strange. It is a work of God which brings us low and sorrowing, and it is hard to bear. Nonetheless it is a work of God, and it is a work prompted by love, as well as the prosecuting of the will and purpose of God. The work of sorrow for sin in the heart is a blessed work, for by it we are brought to the end of ourselves. We are brought to repent and hate the sin which has overcome us. We are brought to hunger and thirst after righteousness. It is a blessed work because in this condition of sorrow and sense of total loss, our hearts and mind are like clay in the hand of God and we are ready to listen, and ready, not only to throw ourselves on the mercy of Christ, but also willing to follow wheresoever the Spirit of God tells us to go.

THE WORD OF GOD.

The captain urged Jonah to pray to his god. The urging was from fear and self interest. The captain hoped that some other god than he knew might be propitious to their plight, and reverse this disaster. There was so much ignorance here. The captain believed that the storm had a godlike character to it, for it was no ordinary storm, and so overwhelming. His prayers to his god, and the sailors to theirs, was unavailing, perhaps Jonah knew another god who was the cause of all the trouble. How ignorant the captain was, and the same sort of ignorance is still around. He sought the help of God but he did not know God or serve God.

Whatever the ignorance and dishonouring nature of the captain’s call to Jonah to pray to his god, yet it came from God and was the way back to God. Prayer is always for the believer the way of blessing, even when in sin. Such a word from God must be immediately obeyed. When the prodigal son came to his sense he said ‘I will return to my father and say to him …’. This is what the believer must do. The believer comes with all the sin and shame and confesses it with a penitent heart, and so God called Jonah back with this advice because God is gracious and merciful and longs to bless. When we come back to God, forgiveness and acceptance is always there. Our Father meets us half way and throws his arms about us and brings us in the banqueting room of his love. His banner over us is always love, let us never allow Satan to keep us from it.

This good advice to pray to God meant two different things to Jonah and to the captain.

The captain’s praying, and the sailors also, were of little value, because their praying was all wrong. The captain came in prayer feeling he could make God propitious to him. His prayer was a work by which he thought he could earn the favour of God. He did not realise or appreciate that his praying would not be heard because he did not know the God to whom he prayed. He knew that God was in the storm. He believed that God could be communicated with. But he had no idea how God could be reached or how God would listen to his prayer. In all his fear and need, the captain had no consciousness of his sin or sinfulness. He came with no repentance in his heart. He still believed that this affliction of the storm was unjustified. He knew that he had done nothing in particular to cause God’s anger against him in the way Jonah had done, but he had no realisation of his deserving of judgement on account of his living without God, and living for himself. He did not understand that he needed atonement for his sin, and he needed a sacrifice for sin, and he needed to pray first for his sins to be forgiven on the grounds of such a sacrifice.

This is the trouble with all prayer outside of Christ. Prayer to God is offered in all sorts of humans dilemmas and needs, but unless the prayer is offered through the mediation of Christ, it cannot avail, and hardly reaches beyond the ceiling of the place where the prayer is made. People don’t understand this, and when their prayer is not answered are angry with God, when they need to be angry with their sin and godlessness. How tragic it is when the ministry of the church calls people to pray, but says little if anything about how prayer becomes real and effective. Prayer through the merits of Jesus is given lip service by ending with the words ‘through Jesus Christ our Lord’, but because there is no teaching concerning Christ as the way and the truth and the life, these words are simply words which have no practical meaning and are said without thought. How grieving to God such prayer is, and how insulting. God has shown himself to be a God who answers prayer. He has showed us the way to himself through Christ, yet like these sailors people seek to come to the Lord in their own righteousness.

Jonah, though he had sinned grievously, knew the Lord. He knew the Lord to be gracious. He knew the means of grace was in the sacrifice of atonement. He had been taught by God of these things, and he had believed them and lived in them. He did not know fully what we know concerning the true sacrifice for sin, but he did believe what had been revealed to him, and it is in this faith and this way that he prayed.

So it is with the believer who has fallen. When we are brought to own our failing, then we have a fountain for cleansing which we know avails for us, even the blood of Jesus shed for us, ever flowing free. So we run to Jesus, and we have this confidence that in such running, Jesus will receive us, and our feet will be washed, and we shall be brought back into his love.