IT is surprising how much is revealed by God in the smallest and shortest of statements. Here in this 3rd verse we have much we can learn, the chief of which is obedience to God.

There is nothing more important than obedience to God. It is at the very heart of saving faith that it produces obedience to God. There is no such thing as that we can receive Christ as Saviour, and inherit eternal life without receiving him as Lord. When people say that we first receive Christ by faith for forgiveness and eternal life, and then later we receive him as Lord, they are saying something that is not true. True salvation involves both. We come to Christ in our need because we realize that we are lost and under the judgement of God. In grace, God reveals Jesus to us as the one who saves us from our sins, both from the consequence of sin and the pollution of sin. In the condition of knowing we are lost and under the sentence of death in hell, we realize that our sin and our sinfulness have brought us to this state and condition. In this understanding we not only desire, with all our hearts, to be saved from death and hell, but we desire to be saved from the sin and pollution that has caused us to be under God's judgement. It is impossible to be in such a condition of repentance and not see and desire that we need more than forgiveness, which produces the conviction that we must be hating and turning from all that causes us to sin.

The very essence of sin is disobedience to God, and so when we are truly given the gift of saving faith, we not only receive forgiveness and eternal life, but there is in our hearts a compulsion to surrender to Christ as Lord. In our lost condition we know that we have nothing which we can contribute to our salvation, and so we cease to trust in our own works and merits, and trust wholly and completely in Jesus as our sin bearer. Together with this trusting wholly and only in Jesus, is the desire that we trust him to lead our lives. We place our lives into his hands. He becomes our Lord and our Shepherd. In this relationship we follow Jesus and obey him, and live always and only to serve him and do his will. If this surrender to Jesus is not there then there is something very defective in our claims to be saved from our sin.

LEARNING OBEDIENCE.

Obedience must be the desire of our hearts when we believe in Jesus, but such is the fallen nature of our flesh that obedience is a progressive thing that we learn all through our Christian lives. Like children we know we must obey our father, but what obedience really means in practice is something that we are taught more about by the Holy Spirit throughout our life.

We also find that obedience is not always natural to us, and there are times when we, in our wisdom, feel we know better than God. Or it may be that we don't like what God commands as was the case with Jonah, and we turn away from the will of God. What God commands seems too difficult, and this makes us fear, and so we hold back. We have to learn to obey. Then it may be the case that God's command may seem, as it must have done to Jonah, either impossible, or even undesirable.

Jonah first felt God's command would destroy his usefulness to his own people, and this made him run away from God. Then when the word of God came to him a second time, he may well have been overwhelmed by the immensity of the task. It was impossible to suppose that Nineveh would heed the message God had given Jonah to declare. Jonah might well have feared that the Ninevites would at the least ridicule him, and in the last resort kill him. Being obedient to God calls us to obey God whether we like the command, or whether we feel the command is wise or justified. We must obey God even if our human nature cringes from the cost of obedience.

OBEDIENCE LEARNT BY DISCIPLINE.

Although when we believe unto salvation we are saved for ever, for the salvation won by Jesus is given in its fullness to all who believe truly; yet because we live in a fallen world, and we still have to express our new life through this sinful body, obedience has to be learnt. Paul tells us that the flesh or the sinful nature desires what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the sinful nature (Galatians 5:17). Not only is the flesh weak but it is contrary to the Spirit. Through our flesh or sinful nature we have desires which Satan can exploit. We have weakness which shuns pain and difficulty. We have influence on our mind which questions God and doubts his love and power.

Jonah found this in his own life. When the word of the Lord came to him the first time, his flesh rebelled against this command. No doubt at the time he could justify his actions, but when God stopped his flight from obedience he knew he could not justify his action. At this time his lack of belief in God's power and goodness; his lack of confidence in God's wisdom; and his own prejudices against Gentiles, all combined to cause his disobedience. He had not yet learned obedience.

Jonah learnt obedience by the things he suffered. Jonah learnt obedience through the fire of chastisement. Jonah learnt obedience through the testing of his faith in sea and the fish.

It is because God dealt with him in discipline and in chastisement that Jonah learnt obedience. Through these trials Jonah learnt to be submissive to God, and he learnt to trust God.

Chastisement when it is inflicted is painful, but the true person of faith finds that like Jonah there is only one way to face it, and that is in submission to the will of God, and admitting the justice of God in the affliction. Even if the chastisement is not a direct result of sin or disobedience, still the faithful soul trusts God that he does all things well, and believes that all things work together for good for them that love God and are called according to his purpose.

During the chastisement, like Jonah, all a Christian soul can do is to cry to God, and hold firmly in faith to the Lord. During the chastisement there may be little, if any, appreciation of the good in what is being suffered; but after the experience is over we are able to say, as Jonah could, that our sufferings have brought forth the peaceable fruits of righteousness. We are able to say that our faith and confidence in God is stronger. We are also able to say we are better fitted for the task ahead which God has given us to do.

It is often through suffering and chastisement that we ever learn to have no confidence in the flesh, to rely in faith only on Jesus, and learn to obey with implicit obedience. Lessons in the spiritual life are so hard to learn that only when God brings us low under his mighty hand do we learn to place our confidence only in him, and obey him in all things.

EXPERIENCE BREEDS DELIGHT IN OBEDIENCE.

After his experience in the sea and the fish, Jonah learnt two things in a far deeper way than he had ever done before.

In the first place he learnt the sinfulness of his corrupt nature. He learnt what David learnt after his sin with Bathsheba and God's dealings with him, that in his flesh dwelt no good thing. He expressed this knowledge when he said “Surely I was sinful at birth, sinful from the time my mother conceived me.” (Psalm 51:5). One of the most difficult things to learn is the depth of sin which resides in our flesh, and to confess that such is human sinfulness that all of us have the seeds of the most awful sins, and but by the grace of God we potentially could commit any sin that is known.

In the second place, rising out of the apprehension of our sinfulness and vileness, we appreciate so much more deeply the wonder of God's mercy, grace and love towards us. We ask ourselves why did the Lord save me? Why has the Lord loved me and called me by his grace, given me faith in Jesus, and given me the status as family. We are amazed at God's love, and from this is bred within us a gratitude that desires only one thing, and that is to please the Lord who has loved us with such and everlasting love, and poured out such grace and mercy towards us.

From this deeper learning through discipline we desire to obey, for it is in obedience we can express our love and gratitude to the Lord who has so greatly loved us, and given his Son to suffer what we deserve.

OBEDIENCE BECOMES COMPLETE.

We are told in this verses that in obedience Jonah went to Nineveh to carry God's word to this city. We are also told that so large was the city that it would take 3 whole days just to walk from one side to the other, without considering the width on either side of the direct route.

Jonah immediately commenced to preach God's word. However long it took, and however exhausting or difficult, he would obey. He set out to proclaim God's word to the whole city, and proclaim it just as it had been given him by God.

Obedience, learnt in the school of Christ, is an obedience that does not cut corners, or hurry the process to get it over as quickly as possible. Nor is such obedience done in a spirit of misery or resentment, but with joy and a desire to please the Lord who has dealt so graciously in salvation.

Because the Lord has commanded, the soul taught in the school of Christ desires of all things to please Jesus by putting heart and soul into the task. Such obedience comes by experience and the gracious dealings of God with the soul. So Jonah learnt his obedience.

CONCLUSION.