Jonah 1:1-3 - Homilies By D. Thomas

God speaking to man in mercy, and man fleeing from God in disobedience.

"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." This is a strange book. It is not the record of a dream, nor the sketch of an allegory, but the history of a man written by himself. True, he speaks in the third person; but so did many of the old prophets, go did the Apostle Paul, and so have many great men. Intellectual children are prone to use the personal pronoun I ; great intellectual men prefer writing of themselves in the third person. Speeches and books bristling with I are generally the effusions of little souls. We have here his name and that of his father, the one signifying "Dove," and the other "the Truth of God." Names of old were sometimes commemorative, sometimes predictive. Names now signify little. Men by great and noble deeds can, and often do, throw into the commonest names a meaning that will radiate through centuries. In these words we have two things worthy of attention—God speaking to man in mercy, and man fleeing from God in disobedience.

I. GOD SPEAKING TO MAN IN MERCY .

1 . Here he speaks. "The word of the Lord." His word to Jonah, like his word to all men, was clear, brief, weighty, practical.

2 . Here he speaks to an individual. He speaks to all men in nature, conscience, history; but in sovereignty he singles some men out for special communications. In times past he spake "unto the fathers by the prophets."

3 . Here he speaks to an individual for the sake of a community. "Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city." Why does God call it a "great" city? To men it was considered "great"—great in numbers, pomp, pretensions, masonry. But to God it could only he great in sin, for sin is a great thing to God; it is a black cloud in his universe; it is the "abominable thing" which he hates. For the sake of this city, in order to effect its moral reformation, and therefore to save it, Jonah receives a commission. "Arise," shake off thy languor, quit thyself for action, go down to this city, and "cry against it." Be earnest. The danger is great, near at hand, and approaching every minute. Observe here two things:

II. MAN FLEEING FROM GOD IN DISOBEDIENCE . "But Jonah rose up to flee unto Tar-shish, from the presence of the Lord." Here is a threefold revelation of man.

1 . His moral freedom. God did not coerce Jonah, did not drive him to Nineveh. He merely commanded him to go, and Jonah resisted the Divine command. Man has the power to resist God—a greater power this than can be found in all the heavenly orbs or in the whole history of material organisms. This power invests man with all but infinite importance, links him to moral government. "Ye do always resist the Spirit of God."

2 . His daring depravity. He dares to attempt extricating himself, not only from his obligations to God, but from his very "presence." Alas! men have not merely the power but the disposition to oppose God. This is their guilt and their ruin; it is what men are doing everywhere, trying to break the shackles of moral responsibility, trying to elude the Infinite.

3 . His egregious folly. See the folly. His endeavouring to escape from God was:

CONCLUSION . The two things that you have in these verses are always going on—God in mercy speaking to man, and man in terror fleeing from God. Oh, how wrong, how foolish, the attempt to flee from the Infinite! "Whither shall I flee from thy presence?"—D.T.