Jonah Comes Out of the Closet
Tom Shrader explores how God sovereignly orchestrates circumstances to bring His wayward children back to obedience, using the storm that pursued Jonah as an example. He emphasizes that God is the 'hound of heaven' who pursues us not to punish but to bless, and that we cannot find peace until we are in right relationship with Him. The teaching shows how even our disobedience becomes an opportunity for witness, as Jonah's testimony to the pagan sailors leads them to fear the true God.
“You can't flee from His presence. Psalm 139 tells me, wherever I go, God's there.”
— Tom Shrader
Series: Jonah
Recorded: May 14, 2015
Duration: 37 min
Themes: disobedience, sovereignty, pursuit, restoration, witness, grace, obedience, peace, running from god, feeling pursued, struggling with obedience, new believer, backslider, witnessing opportunities, spiritual rebellion, seeking restoration
Scripture: Jonah 1:4-17, Jonah 2:10, Jonah 4:6-8, Psalm 139, Proverbs 16:33, John 10:10, John 14:27, Mark 4, Romans 5:1
Theological Themes: divine sovereignty, providence, sanctification, becoming holy, witness, evangelism, redemption, restoration
Full Transcript
If you have Bibles, would you please open them to the book of Jonah. We started there last week. Sandy normally comes to the study Thursday noon, and she had meetings last week, and she said, "How was it?" I said, "It was like world beater. I mean, I don't know, it might have been the best lesson ever taught in the history of mankind." She said, "Really, you need a little higher view of yourself, that's the problem." I said, "No, it wasn't me, it's just I forgot how great this book is."
It's a book that we kind of misunderstand. Remember the quote I read you last week: one author writes, "One of the unfortunate things about the book of Jonah is that most people only know about the great fish. In a word association game, most of us would immediately follow Jonah with whale. Actually, only three of the 48 verses in the book of Jonah talk about the great fish." G. Campbell Morgan has correctly said, "Men have been looking so hard at the great fish that they failed to see the great God."
That's what I think I like about it. I'm reminded after that first week in prep for today how practical this book is, and how reassuring this book is. It's filled with a picture of the resurrection of Christ. Chapter 2, verse 10 says, "Salvation is from the Lord." It's a picture of God's grace, it's a picture of God's love for the whole world. He sends Jonah to Nineveh, the wicked city—arguably, certainly one of the largest, but maybe one of, if not the most wicked city on the planet. It's a picture of God's compassion, it's a picture of God's sovereignty.
God's Sovereign Control
So we'll look at two of these today. Chapter 1, verse 4, "The Lord hurled a great wind." Chapter 1, verse 17, "The Lord appointed a great fish." Chapter 2, verse 10, "The Lord commanded the fish." Chapter 4, trifecta—verse 6, 7, and 8—"God appointed a plant, God appointed a worm, God appointed a scorching east wind." God is in control of it. He is pictured for us as the hound of heaven.
This is good news, not scary news—good news to us. If you're God's kid, He is relentlessly in pursuit of you, not to destroy you or punish you, but because He loves you. He's the hound of heaven. I guess what I enjoy so much about this is I look at Jonah and I see this play itself out.
The Jonah in All of Us
Now here's my tension, and maybe yours: I look at Jonah and go, "Jonah, how stupid are you?" The very first verse of the book of Jonah says, "The Word of the Lord came to Jonah." Well, if that's the case, that's such a great advantage, Jonah. You got the Word of the Lord, just go do it. But we could say the Word of the Lord came to you and me—you've got it in front of you, that Bible. It ought to be so simple, just go do it. But it isn't, is it?
The reason that we study this book is because there's a little bit of Jonah in all of us. We look at this and we go, "Jonah, you idiot." I can hold up a mirror and go, "Tom, you fool." Remember what he had? The Word of the Lord came and He said three things: arise and go to Nineveh and preach against their wickedness. Jonah then got a third of that right—he arose, but he found his ship in Joppa that was going to Tarshish, and he jumped on it.
Let me give you some geographic perspective here. It would be like saying, "Jonah, arise and go to Flagstaff," and he went to Tucson. That's how much he didn't want to do this. He's willing to go to Tucson. I mean, that's desperate stuff.
Jonah's Faulty Logic
Jonah came, and it doesn't say this, but I'm going to make the case Jonah thought like you and I did. He went down to get a ship, and it just so happened the ship was going to Tarshish, and it wasn't like there'd be one of those every day, or every week or month—there'd maybe be two a year. So I'm guessing Jonah got down to the dock, and his thought process went something like this: "This ship is going to Tarshish, I've got the money, I've got the desire. If God wanted me to go to Tarshish, this is what He would do. I guess I misunderstood Him, or God's confused." Ever done that?
So there I am in that process. I said this last week, and got to the car and wrote it down because I thought that was really good: God gives us in this book not advice, but commands. Not to read it like it's a self-help tip book—"Well, now I've got God's view, and now I'll get this view, and now I'll get that view." No, this is the Word of the Lord.
He arose, and he decided to go to Tarshish. This was his big mistake, or one of them. The bottom of verse 3: he's going to Tarshish "from the presence of the Lord." He thought that he could run and hide from God.
You Cannot Hide from God
Psalm 139 tells me wherever I go, God's there. Up you're there, down you're there, you're ahead of me, behind me, you know what I'm going to say before I say it. All of those things—that's God, that's who He is. He's omniscient, all-powerful, the hound of heaven, pursuing you, not to punish you, but to give you what's best for you, and He knows. You can't run from Him. You can't hide from Him.
You might—and we're going to look at Jonah now, because Jonah's going to go way into this disobedience. We said last week that if I go my way, I never get where I want to go, and I always pay the way. If I go God's way, I always get where I want to go, and He pays the way. But if you look, here's what Jonah decided. Jonah decided to flee from the presence of the Lord, and it says—it was speaking of the exchange economically—but it says he paid the fare, and he's going to pay the fare. The hound of heaven is after him.
The Storm Begins
So, verse 4, it's where we pick up today: "And the Lord hurled a great storm, and there was this great storm in the sea, so that the ship is about to break up." It's not just like a spring rain to make the flowers grow. It's this massive storm. I've never been sailing. It looks like something. It looks cool.
and fun. When we're at Coronado, you'll see the sailboats out there. But I don't think I'd be a good sailor, and I say this because I have the Discovery Channel, and I've watched these guys, and it's a lot of work. I'm sure if you're on a sailboat with four or five of you, they're going to want to work. I don't want to work. That's why I came on the sailboat, to sail. And they're working. Then you get in some of those storms, and you get a seasoned guy, they kind of know it, and they navigate their way through it.
These are seasoned sailors who are in a storm that is scary. So scary, the boat's about to break up. Verse 5, the sailors became afraid. Now, look at their response. This would be our equivalent of a foxhole conversion. Every man cried to his God, and they threw their cargo, which was in the ship, into the sea to lighten the load.
They are so afraid, two things. Number one, they're crying to their God. They were polytheists. So there'd be a God of rain, and a God of sky, and a God of... I'm running out of gods here. Sun and moon, and a one-putt green God. I don't know. There's all these gods. So you pick your God, doesn't matter. Got ten of us on this boat. You all pick your God, and maybe one of them will cover our bets. But they're so afraid, they're throwing cargo overboard. This is their livelihood. These guys are very much afraid.
Jonah's False Peace in Disobedience
But Jonah, look where he is. Jonah had gone down below the hold of the ship, and he laid down and he fell asleep. They're crying out to their own God, and Jonah is sound asleep. Let me remind you where Jonah is. He's so far outside of the will of God, he's going in exactly the opposite direction. He's in the middle of sin, and yet he has this momentary peace.
See, sometimes you can kid yourself in sin as you get into it, and God doesn't zap you, and you actually feel okay about it. If you're in a crummy marriage, and you're fighting and fighting and fighting and you put the burrito in the microwave and you set it for two minutes, and she comes along and sets it for 45 seconds, and you set it back at two, and you can't even agree on microwaving a burrito, if you guys separate, you're going to get a sense of peace. But you haven't solved the problem. God's answer for conflict in the relationship is not to separate.
I was at Grand Canyon University on Tuesday, and I was going to speak on leadership to this 80 people maybe in this division. One of them handled the dorms. They were talking about how they're seeing so many kids coming in from non-traditional backgrounds with so much baggage that they're having these enormous opportunities to witness to, discipleship, minister to their kids. They said one of the programs that we're instituting in the fall, and we're trying to figure out how to move it in, is roommate reconciliation. I said, well, if you get that figured out, I've got about 50 guys in a men's group that need that for their wives. Because our idea is we'll just separate, if we just separate, it'd be like my mom, don't say flat tire, you'll have one. Just separate, don't talk about it, and the problem goes away.
So Jonah's found peace. In Jonah's mind, I'm sure his last thought as he's laying down is, yep, I was right, it was all along, it was Tarshish. I can really sleep soundly in this. He's out like a light, sleeping away. He's found peace.
True Peace Versus Worldly Peace
Now, we need to be careful, right? Jesus says in John, I think it's 14:27-ish, I'll leave you, when I leave you, I'll give you peace, but not peace as the world gives. There's a worldly peace. It's oftentimes always temporary to a person or a place or a thing or an achievement. And I ultimately have this conflict, and I want to, as a follower of Christ, I want to do things God's way, not man's way.
I'm speaking Sunday at Baccalaureate at Mountain View High. So it's a big high school, 3,000 kids. They said we want spiritual, this is all about spiritual. We got you here to deliver the spiritual truth. So apparently this is the part of graduation week that's not fun. And I've been working on a big point. So here's the point I came up with to these kids, students, young men and women. What you do is not as important as how you do it.
You hit your 660th home run in the major leagues, but you're A-rod, and they boo you as you round the bases. Or you can hit 660 home runs and be Willie Mays, and they're scooping up the grass that you've walked on. You can win seven Tour de Frances, but if you cheated, it doesn't matter. You can win a game with inflated or deflated, I'm just trying to be current. I don't care. It doesn't matter. It matters how you do what you do. Not what you do.
Every one of these kids has a dream, and almost none of them are going to achieve it. This may not be the motivational part of this speech. But it's true, they aren't going to do it. They got some kid that's gained 2,000 yards, and he thinks he's going to be a Jim Brown, and he isn't. He's going to rip out his knee the first practice. Here's a guy, and he's going to put Apple out of business. He'll be 34 picking apples up in Washington somewhere. I mean, none of this is going to work out the way you think it's going to. But it doesn't matter what you do, it does matter how you do it. How do I do it? For the honor and glory of God. I can be very unsuccessful, but successful in the world's eyes.
The Captain's Wake-Up Call
You see it just juxtaposed here. Here's Jonah, and we know he's directly out of God's will, but he's got this incredible sense of peace. So verse six, the captain approaches him and says, how is it that you're sleeping? How can you sleep in the midst of all of this? He said, you're sleeping, get up and call on, now there's the phrase, similar to what we saw in verse five, personalizes the strategy they got going. You call on your God and perhaps your God will be concerned about us so we won't perish.
We're all calling our own God to crapshoot here, we don't know what's going on. Hopefully this is going to work out. And each man said to his mates, come let us cast lots so we can learn on whose account this calamity has struck us. So they cast lots and the lot fell on Jonah.
Proverbs 16:33 says, and I'm paraphrasing, you roll the dice, God determines the outcome. And somehow in their equation, I don't know the thought, but somehow they would cast lots and whatever their metrics was, it would lead them to the person they needed to talk about. They would get down, as you know, they wore robes. They would kind of crouch down, pull that robe tight across kind of their lap, and they'd throw the lots on them. And that's what they did. And the lots came back, as I said, in whatever measurement they used, and it came back and it said, go check with Jonah.
The Five Questions and Jonah's Testimony
So they said to him in verse eight, tell us. And then they ask him five questions. Tell us, on whose account is this calamity struck us? What's your occupation? Where do you come from? What's your country? From what people are you? They ask him five questions. He disregards the first four and answers the last one.
Verse nine, I'm a Hebrew. I fear the Lord God of heaven, who made the sea and the dry land. Jonah is now outed. Jonah does exactly what he didn't want to do. All of a sudden, Jonah is the one who is giving testimony.
Jonah said, listen, I'm a Hebrew. The God that I fear, the God that I worship, at least fear enough and worship enough, but not enough to obey Him, that God, He's the one who made the sea. He's the one who created all this.
The Sailors' Growing Fear
Verse 10, then the men, that's the sailors, became extremely frightened. And they said, how could you do this? For they knew he was fleeing from the presence of the Lord because he had told them. So apparently, Jonah didn't just identify that he's a Hebrew, but he begins to tell them, this is the God, and here's the story. Now, I don't know how much detail he gave them, we don't know, but enough that they knew he was running from God, and they're very much afraid.
Why? Because they've heard about this God. We getting this? They're going, wow, this is the God, we know something about Him. He parted the sea. This is the God that we've heard so much about. Hey, this is the God who killed the firstborn of the Egyptians. This God doesn't mess around. This is a serious God.
Inevitable Witnessing
And Jonah is now doing what you and I do every day and that is we are witnessing to the people around us, good or bad. Witnessing isn't optional, witnessing isn't mandatory, witnessing is inevitable. And I just add this, the people around you typically have a higher standard for your behavior than you have.
Years ago, a Coal Banker, right when I got saved, and you know I was fairly vocal about it and it was a radical change. You walked into our office, this was down on Central, you walked in and then you walked into a huge room with, I don't know, 50 or 60 cubes in it, I don't know. And I'm standing at the door and we're doing an autopsy on a deal that's just blown. And I represent, I think, the buyer in this, they represent the seller, and I think it's the seller's fault, they think it's the buyer's fault, and we're going back and forth, we're not moving the ball, we got a scrum going on, nothing's happening.
So I figure, well, I'll up the ante a bit. So I throw in a couple of words that typically aren't heard often in a room like this. And just as I do, there's a young lady who walks in, and she really just hears the words. And that's because that's the way the sentence was designed, to emphasize these words. And she said to me, I didn't know Christians talk like that.
Learning from Mike Barber's Example
Now there was a side of me that wanted to say, well, you aren't very bright, I'm a Christian and I just said it, they obviously do. But that was in the vein of combativeness, as I was. It reminded me of Mike Barber, do you remember Mike Barber that played for the Houston Oilers? As I remember, he was a tight end. But he tells the story, he showed up at our study down in Tucson one Wednesday morning. And at that point, he was going around the country speaking in prisons. And somebody said, hey, why don't you let Mike teach? So it tells you what they thought of me, total stranger. And I said, hey, Mike, you want to teach? He said, yeah.
So he's telling a story. He's coming across the middle. And this guy is not looking. And he just hits him, blindsides him with a block, just a great shot. And they get into a little tussle. And bam, Barber gets him again. And the guy stands up and says, I thought you were a Christian. And he said, I am. Pray for me. I got a lot of growing to do. So that's how I felt that day.
The Progression of Fear
So Jonah's in the midst of all of this. And these guys are saying, we're in trouble here. We know your God. Your God is a serious God. So see the progression? In verse 5, they are afraid. In verse 10, they're extremely afraid. And in verse 16, they feared the Lord. There's a progression there.
If you are one of the redemption churches, last Sunday, we were teaching Mark 4. It's where Jesus is with the disciples on a boat. He's teaching. They want to go to the other side of the sea. They get out in the middle of the sea. There's a great storm. And Jesus is asleep. And they wake Him up. And you go through it. In that progression, it says, they were very afraid. So they woke Him up. And He says, be still. And the sea is like glass. And now it says, they were extremely afraid.
A storm is scary. But when you're in the presence of the One who controls the storm, and you get that, there is a fear, not just a trembling, but there is an awe of this. Look what's happening to Jonah. He's having this amazing opportunity to talk to these people in the
midst of their trial. That's why I try to stay to you and keep in my mind: you have this opportunity to witness all day, every day. This is why you build relationships.
Just like those students at Mountain View, you are in relationship with people whose life's going to come tumbling down. I don't care what the history is. I don't care if they've made every deal they ever worked on. I don't care if they've never been sick—they're going to be. I don't care if their kids have lined up and they've had perfect kids forever. Somewhere along the way, they're going to be blindsided. And the better it's been, the more the blindside is going to be.
When all of a sudden, because in their mind, they'll go, "Oh, it's the grace of God." But in their mind, they're going, "Well, I just have perfect kids. Why wouldn't I? They have my genes. Nothing's going to happen." And then you hit this skid. When they're so desperate that they're praying to their own gods, they'll even talk to you.
That's where you can take them through the progression and find out, well, who's your God? Is it the God of family or the God of money, the God of health, the God of comfort? Because whatever that is, it's going to fail you.
The Vulnerability of False Gods
I'm watching Tom Brady. Tom Brady, to me, is like the coolest guy on the planet. Jon Stewart the other night said, "Okay, this came down. So he's going to have to miss—Tom Brady's going to have to miss the first four games. He's going to have to go to the beach with his family." And there's a picture of Gisele in a swimsuit and the kids. And Stewart says, "This guy wins at everything."
Well, I don't know. Suspend him. Now we're going to decide, is he a cheater, is he not a cheater? I mean, forget whether it's right or wrong or fair. You're Tom Brady. We've got more Super Bowl rings than fingers. And this is going to take you down a notch—a half ounce of pressure. I don't know. That's how vulnerable you are.
If your reputation—watch Lance Armstrong. This is an amazing guy to watch. This guy can't tell the truth in the middle of all of this with film and everything else around Him. You're so deluded. Your identity is those seven. I think I'm right when I say this: I'd rather lose with my integrity than win dishonestly. I don't know. I haven't had to make the choice. But that's what really matters.
So if your God is a trophy or your God is your health or your God is whatever, they're going to lose it. False gods never fail to fail. So all those people in your life that you're naturally a little bit even—don't resent them maybe even because everything's been smooth. Just wait. And then be there. They're so desperate.
You see the picture? I don't know if I'm painting this well. You see the picture? The sailors are so desperate that they're crying out to their gods, but they're open to any God. And you come along and say, "Well, let me tell you about the one true God. Let me tell you about Jesus." And they're extremely afraid. And all of a sudden, they realize, "Oh my gosh, this is the God that created all of this." And knowledge isn't our problem. Our problem is wisdom that God is going to give.
Desperate Measures
Pick up the rest of the story here. Put a bow on it. Verse 10: "They became very afraid. They said, 'How could you do this?' For the men knew that he was fleeing from the presence of the Lord—he told them."
So they said to Him, "What shall we do to you so that the sea may be calm?" For the sea was becoming increasingly stormy. They were very much afraid. Now it's stormier than it was. And he said, "Desperate times require desperate measures. Throw me overboard. Put me into the sea. Then the sea will be calm. For I know that on account of me, this great storm has come."
But the men rowed desperately to return to land. But they couldn't. The sea stops it. It's even stormier.
The One True God
Verse 14—and this is the beauty for me of when I circle or mark or see a trend. When I just look down at verse 14 in my Bible, I see three big circles. And they're around the word "Lord." We've been talking about your god, his god, my god. Now we're talking about the one true God. Three times.
They—that's the sailors—they called on the Lord: "We earnestly pray, O Lord, don't let us perish on account of this man's life. Do not put innocent blood on us. For thou, O Lord, has done as thou was pleased." And they pick Him up and they throw Him overboard. And immediately, the sea stops raging. And the men greatly feared the Lord. They offered sacrifice to the Lord. And they made a vow.
See, I'm never going to find peace in my life—I am apologizing up front, it's almost corny—in the midst of the storms in my life, I'm never going to find peace until I'm in right relationship with—and that doesn't just mean salvation, that means obedience to—the One True God.
Peace in the Storm
And when I am, just so you don't misunderstand this, or I miscommunicate it, it doesn't mean that the storm in your life is going to stop. You've got this terrible thing, whatever it is. Say it's a sickness of some sort. And all of a sudden, you're doing business with God. You come to God. Maybe you're a brand new believer. Maybe you've been wandering around. Maybe you've come to this assessment. Whatever it is, it doesn't mean that the sickness is going to go away.
You may get better from this, but you've got the fact you're going to die, right? Something's got to kill you. We all want to go to Heaven. Nobody wants to die. We've got all that going in there. But somewhere in there, those things have to come into our life. And the peace is not that they don't come into our life. The peace is when they do, God's with you in the midst of that.
I was talking to a guy who—and this is a few years ago, so I don't know if He still does—but worked as a chaplain at hospice. And He said, "Who are you?" And I told Him. And He said, "That's East Valley Bible Church. That's what we were in that day." And I said, "Yeah." He said, "Your people are the best." And I said, "Well, I think so, thanks. I appreciate that."
Theology That Sustains in Life's Darkest Moments
What do you mean? He said their theology so prepares them for the hospice moment—whether the ones that are in the bed, which may be the easiest spot sometimes, or the ones that are standing there. There's your mom. It prepares you for that, the inevitability of life, or your dad or your kid. Those are just incredibly difficult times. And there's no promise at all that you aren't going to experience it, but He's with you. You can't flee from His presence.
Jonah tried, and he's at this point where he's saying, "I'd rather die, throw me overboard, than obey God." But God's not done with him. That's not God's plan.
The Great Reversal
So what does He do? Verse 17: "The Lord appointed a great fish to swallow Jonah, and Jonah was in the stomach of the fish three days and three nights."
If this were a TV series, this would be the last episode of the season. This would be the one where you're going all summer wondering what happens. He's in the fish. He's going to die. Well, he's not going to die because they're coming back. Something's got to happen. So we'll pick it up right there.
Two Sides of the Story
I don't know who you identify with. I don't even know exactly how to apply it other than on both sides. But whether you're like the sailors who have been praying to and living for your own God, you need to know the one true God who controls all things, who created all things, who made you for His pleasure and for you to enjoy Him. You can take all the things of life and live, as Jesus says in John 10:10, abundantly.
That's who you are, and that's God. I would think that ought to be the majority of people in this room. It occurred to me the other day that this January marks the 25th anniversary of teaching Priority Living. We've been doing this a quarter of a century. That's a long time. Almost as long as a baseball game. That's how long that is.
So you've heard those lessons a thousand times. Over 25 years, we've kind of had time in each other's lives, even at a distance, to know the truth of this. We've grown old together. We've made and lost money together. We've lost family together. We've had the difficulty of life together. But it's Him who sustains us.
The Relentless Pursuit
Well, I don't know where you are in that, but I know the Hound of Heaven is after you, pursuing you—not to destroy you, but to strengthen you. To give you a desire to be His kid. To live in that way that glorifies Him until the very end of our life.
Your Daily Mission Field
I would encourage you as we close—there are people like these sailors in your life every day. You run into them at happy hour. You run into them in the course of work. You walk at about the same time every day so you see the same people. As you start to talk to them, they're going through life, and they may not know Jesus, but there's going to be a point where they're going to be desperate—so desperate they'll begin to pray to their God.
It's at that moment that you have the opportunity to talk to them about the one true God, Jesus, who brings you a peace that passes all understanding. Because Romans 5:1 tells us we've been justified so we have peace with God, and because we have the peace with God and of God, we now can share that peace with the world around us.
Let's pray. Father, thank You for that awesome truth. I love the story. There's so many different applications, and maybe consequently for me, too many rabbit trails. God, let us be Jonah who understands who You are. But don't let us be Jonah and run. There's a little bit of Jonah in all of us. Day after day, God, there's a battle between Your will and our will. Father, let us run up the white flag and surrender and give up to You because You love us even more than we love ourselves. You give us this book, not filled with advice, but filled with commands. Father, help us obey those commands and glorify You. We pray it to You in Christ's name. Amen.