Jonah 1:11-16 - Homilies By G.t. Coster

The sailors conduct.

Look at those swarthy sailors. They were among Jonah's teachers; they, too, may be among ours. From age to age in this chapter they sail the sea—Jonah's friends; ours also if we will let them be, having much to say to us if we have but ears to hear. Mark—

I. THEIR REVERENCE . There is nothing rough and rude about them. The storm has subdued them. What they hear from Jonah affects them. Is it not the hour of their conversion? They cease from idolatry and worship Jehovah. Hearing of Jehovah as God of heaven, earth, and sea, they were "exceedingly afraid." He must indeed be the Lord! And that Jonah should have sought to flee from him! "What shall we do unto thee?" they ask; for through Jonah they would learn the will of God concerning him. They have no grudge against him, no scorn for him, no words of insult, no deed of violence. They reverence his God, and so show kindness to him. A pattern in this to us. Have we an offending brother—one who has offended us? Let us wrong not ourselves, nor wrong him, the better man in him, by bitterness. The wrong doer will have self-reproach enough, bitter memories enough.

II. THEIR SELF - DENYING GENEROSITY . Those sailors did what they could to save the prophet. When Jonah was at his best they were at their best. His unselfishness called out theirs; their nobility answered to his. Thus is it ever. Be kind, pure, generous, and you will help others to show kindness, and to be pure and generous. What inspiration is there in goodness! Supremely is this seen in our blessed Lord. What an encouragement to copy him that we may quicken others!

"Honour to these whose words or deeds

Thus help us in our daily needs,

And by their overflow

Raise us from what is low."

III. THEIR PRAYERFULNESS . As heathens they had "given themselves to prayer; Hearing of Jehovah, they pray to him. They cannot save Jonah; but before they do the deprecated deed "they cried unto the Lord"— all of them, earnest, importunate. They recognized God in this series of events; they would be submissive to him; they would be clear of this man's blood; they would take no step without prayer. Nor let us. Let it be the "key of the morning and the bolt of the night." When have we not requests to offer? needs to be supplied? When do we not need God ?

IV. THEIR GODLY FEAR ATTESTED . At the sight of the sudden great calm "the men feared the Lord exceedingly." Their fear, their faith, evidenced itself. By "a sacrifice unto the Lord" they expressed in act thankfulness for the past and present; by their "vows," their resolution of service in the time to come. As from themselves, must have come the knowledge of the sacrifice offered and vows made, we may believe that that sacrifice to Jehovah was the first of many, and that the vows made were paid; otherwise they had not cared to have remembered or spoken of them. In these days of Christian light may we offer a daily sacrifice of our time, means, faculty, influence, to him who for us "even dared to die," and in his strength perform the many vows that we have made.—G.T.C.

Verse 17-ch. 2:10

Jonah's De profundis.

Here the prophet is, as he is called in the Koran, "the man of the fish." God had pity on him, and sent him into an awful school house that he might "come to himself." A strange character was his, and a strange chastisement came upon him. God's power was his keeper— his power "who hath a bridle for the lips of every disease, and a hook for the nostrils of death." The external history of the man through that imprisonment is unwritten. Not so the history of his heart.

I. SEE JONAH AT PRAYER . He had slept in the ship; he is awake in the fish. He prays; he feels his misery; he sees his sin. The man is awake. In the terrible darkness of adversity he longs for the light of the Lord . In what solitude was he! Far from light of day, human voices, human sympathy. Yet there he could pray. We can pray anywhere. Jeremiah could pray in the miry pit, Daniel in the lions' den, and Jonah in the fish amid the paths of the seas. He was in sad and extreme case. He was as a dead man out of mind; yet he can pray. What distress is ours? Our hopes may be "ready to perish." But think of Jonah! He could have recourse to prayer. So can we. The greatest of all was Jonah's Friend. In losing his liberty he has found his God. He prays "unto the Lord his God." "O Lord my God" (verse 6), he cries. We, too, have the greatest of all as our Friend. None need despair with such a Helper.

II. JONAH 'S PRAYER WAS A CRY . Whether a vocal cry or not, it was the cry of his soul. In this second chapter we have a well arranged prayer. If not the exact order, we have here the substance of the requests he cried unto the Lord. What agony and horror may be in a human cry! In cries from the sea when perishing men call for a lifeboat! Jonah cried to God. What tears in his words! what distress in his tones! What hope for him, as "out of the belly of hell" (the unseen world, the place of the dead) he cried? Already he seemed numbered with the dead. The sense of God's displeasure was the soul of his affliction. "All thy billows and waves passed over me." Was God favourably there? "I said, I am cast out of thy sight." That was the pang. He had sought to escape God's presence; now he mourned the Divine absence. He had no enjoyment in his prayer, yet it was accepted. The prayer of agony ends in the voice of singing.

III. JONAH 'S PRAYER WAS ONE OF FAITH . "I will look again," he said—mentally look again—"toward thy holy temple." How much the "temple" included—the Law, worship, sacrifices! towards these he looked, and thus overcame his fears. Down there, in those depths, in that living tomb, by that "look" this man becomes one of the heroes of faith. He, too, like a prince prevailed. That look was seen. God was pleased with it, and accepted it. Still God sees a look when the soul is in it. Though no word be spoken, we can look unto him and be saved.

IV. JONAH 'S PRAYER WAS ONE OF THANKFULNESS . In this prayer he recalls and makes his own words from the Book of Psalms. Some of the old cries of David became the new cries of Jonah. And, marvellously preserved, his prayer was praise; and, in view of his deliverance, he vowed unto the Lord. And his vow was kept. The very subsequent writing of this chapter warrants our belief of that. And what of the vows we have made in times of peril? "Vow and pay." Say, "I have opened my mouth unto the Lord, and I cannot go back."

V. JONAH 'S PRAYER WAS ONE OF UTTER DEPENDENCE ON GOD . Such was his spirit, such his prayer. With "salvation is of the Lord" it ended. And by that he seems to have meant that he left all with God? He was in the best hands. In his own time and way God would save him. If he will, creatures will act contrary to their natures, as did this fish in not hurting Jonah. It God had "prepared" or appointed; and now its work was done, the prophet penitent, saved not only from death, hut also from trusting in "lying vanity," "the deceitful promise of his own will and his own way," no longer "forsaking his own mercy" even God, but cleaving to him. Now "the Lord spake unto the fish, and it vomited Jonah upon the dry land." And the prophet is a saved man—saved body and soul, the word, his creed and To Deum, upon his lips, "Salvation is of the Lord," Still, "he must save, and he alone." Jesus, and no other, "shall save his people from their sins."—G.T.C.

Jonah 1:17 with Jonah 2:10 ; Jonah 3:3 (cf. Matthew 12:39-41 )

Jonah a prophetic sign of Christ.

I. I N BOTH WE SEE A MARKED JUDGMENT OF GOD . The storm, the detection, the punishment, were all from God. Jonah was the sinner on board. Christ, "without sin," " became sin for us." He suffered at the hands of wicked men; yet "the Lord laid on him the iniquity of us all," "He was wounded for our transgression." The vast world vessel went plunging on to destruction, the storm unappeased while the sin was unpunished. On!—

"When lo! upon the reeling deck a weary stranger stands,

And to the dark devoted crew stretches his suppliant hands;

From the face of God, from the face of God, from the face of God ye flee;

'Tis the blast of the breath of his nostrils that shakes this stormy sea.

But take ye me and cast me into the troubled deep,

And the wrath that is roused against you will be pacified, and sleep."

Yes, he is our Peace! "For the transgression of my people was he stricken."

II. JONAH , IN HIS BURIAL , WAS A SIGN OF CHRIST . Very unlike was the sea monster bearing away the prophet to the rock tomb that received the body of our Lord; yet in this they were alike, that they had been unused as tombs before. Prepared were both for the event that has made both eternally memorable. "The Lord had prepared" the fish. Joseph, unwittingly acting out the Divine purpose, had prepared the rock hewn tomb. He may have meant it for himself. God meant it for his Son. This Isaiah had foretold: "He made his grave with the rich ." The time of Jonah's and our Lord's burial agreed. So our Lord's resurrection on the third day was "according to the Scriptures"—to his own word and his predictive type. Jonah, cast into the deep, seemed done with. An end of him ! So, to many, with Christ, when the loving Marys and "those lords of high degree" bore him to the tomb. In his living tomb Jonah miraculously lived. And though Christ's body was dead, where was he ? Still living; "doing good;" preaching the glad tidings in the unseen world ( 1 Peter 3:19 ).

III. JONAH 'S RESURRECTION WAS A SIGN OF CHRIST 'S. God "spake unto the fish," and it cast the living prophet to the shore. So "God raised from the dead" the Lord Jesus. Thus he reversed the marked judgment that, in suffering and death, had come upon his Son. He was now "highly exalted" as Prince and Saviour. Moral resurrections attest Christ's. "Witnesses to Christ's resurrection" are all saved men and women. They are "risen with Christ;" and by his Spirit rise.

IV. JONAH 'S MISSION TO THE GENTILES WAS A TYPE OF CHRIST 'S. Jonah was sent to the Ninevites. Christ arose to be a Saviour "to the uttermost parts of the earth." To all nations. For every creature. His mission—by many voices and ministers—is going on. Its continuance declares his. Its moral victories—over ignorance, superstition, sin—attest his royal and almighty power. "All power hath been given unto me." Jonah himself, raised from such a grave, was the sign to the Ninevites. Christ is the Sign of Christianity. Often, alas! spoken against and rejected. Happy those—only those—who accept and glory in him!—G.T.C.