Jonah 1: The Sea Grows Calm and God's Love Protects

Introduction

"At no point did God lose control of history." In this message from the series "The Gospel in Jonah," the preacher of the Igreja Baptista de Torres Novas, in Portugal, finishes the first chapter of the book. The week before, the church had stopped at what was happening on board the ship. This time, he reads Jonah 1:11-17.

The scene is the same: a prophet on the run, a ship bound for Tarshish, a storm that keeps growing. But everything turns in a few verses. Jonah owns his guilt, pagan sailors begin to pray to the LORD, the sea suddenly grows calm, and God appoints a great fish so that his prophet does not drown.

Behind this account, the preacher shows a God who remains sovereign in the middle of chaos, who goes looking for the lost, and whose steadfast love pursues even the one who disobeys him.

Outline of the Message

1. A Prophet Rebuked by Pagans

Jonah tried to flee from the presence of God: he went down to Joppa and boarded a ship for Tarshish, the opposite direction from Nineveh. God sent a great wind upon the sea.
The sailors, probably Phoenicians, each cried out to their own gods. They woke Jonah, cast lots, and the lot fell on him. Jonah did not hide who he was: he is a Hebrew and he fears the LORD, the God of the covenant, who made the heavens, the sea and the dry land.
These men reproached him. The preacher dwells on this paradox: "Imagine a believer rebuked by an unbeliever" because he is disobeying God. In the history of Israel, God often used ungodly nations, such as the Babylonians, to discipline his own people.
He draws three things from it. Rebellion against God does not go unpunished. In his sovereignty, God uses whatever means he wants to take care of his children, and taking care means protecting, but also often disciplining: "the king's heart" is in his hand, and he turns it wherever he will (Proverbs 21:1). Finally, one way or another, God accomplishes his purposes. Jesus said so when he entered Jerusalem: if the disciples were silent, "the very stones would cry out" (Luke 19:40).

2. "Hurl Me into the Sea": Owning Your Guilt

The storm gets worse. The sailors ask: "What shall we do to you, that the sea may quiet down for us?" The verdict is clear: Jonah, you are the problem.
In verse 12, Jonah answers with resolve: "Pick me up and hurl me into the sea; then the sea will quiet down for you, for I know it is because of me that this great tempest has come upon you." Convinced that it is pointless to flee from God, he fully owns his guilt.
These men had nothing to do with his disobedience. Jonah then shows a love that takes another's place: "So that you may live, I will die." True love meets the needs of the one loved, whatever the cost. Love is a decision of the will, not a mere feeling, and between husband and wife it commits an entire life.
First application: it is pointless to flee from God, pointless to try to manipulate him with our ideas and arguments. You can only do that with "a God held captive in your head," not with the God Jonah had to deal with.
When we disobey, we are subject to his discipline, because he is a Father: he disciplines the one he loves (Hebrews 12:6). "If you are disobeying and everything is going well in your life, something is very wrong."
Second application: owning your own guilt before God and before those you have hurt. Since Eden, everyone blames someone else: "the woman whom you gave to be with me," "the serpent" (Genesis 3:12-13). Today it is still the brother's fault, the wife's fault, the husband's fault. The preacher invites us to practice "the living and extraordinary power of forgiveness": there is power in admitting your mistake and asking forgiveness, and power in forgiving. Jesus taught it and lived it: he died for sinners and he forgave them.

3. Pagan Sailors Who Pray to the LORD

The sailors do not throw Jonah overboard right away. They row hard to get back to land, which seemed close, but the sea grows more and more furious. They understand that this God is not a pagan deity who can be won over with an offering or a ritual: he is sovereign.
Then they pray: "O LORD, let us not perish for this man's life, and lay not on us innocent blood, for you, O LORD, have done as it pleased you." A few hours earlier, these men were calling on pagan gods. Now they cry out to the God of the covenant and acknowledge his sovereignty. "What a prayer, what a conversion!"
How can men who knew neither the law nor the covenant call on the LORD? The preacher goes back to the call of Abraham: "in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed" (Genesis 12:1-3). Already in the Old Testament we see signs that the gospel will reach the nations. Paul will explain this revealed mystery: the gospel is also for the Gentiles (Ephesians 3:6).
God used Jonah's rebellion and turned evil into good. The preacher estimates that there may have been around a hundred men aboard a medium-sized ship on this route, while stressing that nobody knows for certain.
This is what Paul calls turning to God "from idols to serve the living and true God" (1 Thessalonians 1:9). Our idols are not made of clay or stone, they are in the heart. John Calvin said that the human heart is a factory of idols: possessions, the house, the car, work, leisure, sport, a spouse, a son or a daughter. These affections have their place, but loyalty to God must come before everything.
To find out, ask yourself: "What do I live for and what do I sacrifice myself for?" For Jesus Christ, for the truth of the gospel, for the people of God, like the persecuted brothers and sisters who keep worshiping the true God at the risk of their lives? "For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also" (Matthew 6:21).

4. The Sea Grows Calm and the Sign of Jonah

They hurl Jonah into the sea, and the sea ceases from its raging. One Bible version (the NVT, in Portuguese) specifies: "at that very moment." The calm is immediate.
It took a human sacrifice for the wrath of God to be appeased. This recalls the cross: someone sacrificed to turn aside God's wrath against our sins. Jonah, in a way, illustrated it.
The preacher nevertheless says he is not very much in favor of making Jonah a type of Christ. The differences between the two persons and between the circumstances of their sacrifice are too great: Jonah took the path of disobedience, Jesus the path of obedience to the Father, all the time.
Jesus himself referred directly to Jonah. To the scribes and Pharisees who demanded a sign, he answered that no sign would be given to them except the sign of the prophet Jonah: as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of a great fish, the Son of Man would be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth, and the men of Nineveh would rise up at the judgment (Matthew 12:38-41).
Some liberal theologians have presented the book of Jonah as a fable. For the preacher, the most important point is that it is Jesus who speaks of it: he confirms a real prophet, a real story and the real conversion of the Ninevites.

5. Fear, Sacrifices and Vows: Rediscovering Wonder

"Then the men feared the LORD exceedingly, and they offered a sacrifice to the LORD and made vows." There was not only a physical rescue: pagans acknowledged the true God.
The disciples react the same way when Jesus calms the storm: "Who then is this, that even the wind and the sea obey him?" (Mark 4:41). This is the God we believe in, a God revealed in his Word, "not a God invented in our heads."
The sailors do not stop at fear: they offer sacrifices, an act of worship, and make vows, that is, they make commitments before God.
The preacher sees in this "the beauty of first love," the kind many lose over the years. He calls us to revive our wonder at who God is, at what he has done in history and in our own story: the almighty, creator, good God who seeks the lost and comes to us in Jesus Christ, who took on himself God's wrath and the guilt of our sins.
The story begins with pagans crying out to their gods in a terrifying storm. It ends in calm, with those same men worshiping the true God. God knew that Jonah would disobey, yet he steered the story to save these men, and to carry on his plan to save Nineveh.
The preacher quotes a Reformed Old Testament scholar: "Jonah's anti-missionary activity led, ironically, to the conversion of Nineveh." The promise made to Abraham was already being fulfilled.
A sleeping prophet, a sinking ship, pagan prayers: what looked like a chaotic picture to us was, for God, the course of his sovereign will expressing his love and compassion. When you watch the news and everything seems lost, do not forget that at no point has God lost control of history.

6. The Great Fish: A God Who Protects

"And the LORD appointed a great fish to swallow up Jonah. And Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights." Other versions say that the LORD "prepared" or "provided" this fish.
With respectful humor, the preacher imagines God already placing the fish next to the ship at the moment he sends the storm: "Stay there, someone is going to fall." God had planned everything, the storm as well as the fish.
The text does not say what kind of animal it was. Some speak of a sperm whale or a whale shark, but nobody has any certainty.
The essential point lies elsewhere: God was merciful, patient and full of love toward Jonah. For Jonah, it was the end. But God provided protection so that he would not drown. The preacher quotes Pastor Nicodemus, who sees in it a prototype of Jesus.
God preserved his prophet so that his life and his mission to Nineveh could continue. In spite of his rebellion, "God's steadfast love pursued him." And along the way, that same love reached idolatrous men, whose lives were spared and who came to know the true God.

7. Four Lessons for Today

Rest your heart in God, even when you do not understand his ways. Habakkuk did not see the restoration he was waiting for, and yet he wrote: "Though the fig tree should not blossom [...] yet I will rejoice in the LORD; I will take joy in the God of my salvation" (Habakkuk 3:17-19). God is in command of history and of your own life.
Never try to flee from God. He was merciful to Jonah, to the sailors, to Nineveh, and he wants to bring you back to himself.
When you disobey, do not look for someone to blame. If you have hurt someone by your words, your child, your spouse, a member of the church, if you have been selfish or indifferent, ask forgiveness. Do not sweep things under the rug: "time erases nothing." In a marriage, what is left unresolved can resurface thirty years later and lead to divorce. Look to Christ: as he has forgiven us, forgive those close to you.
The storm was the expression of God's wrath against Jonah's rebellion, and the sea grew calm when Jonah was thrown in. At the cross, something of universal scope took place: Jesus gave his holy life as a propitiation for our sins, he took on himself the punishment we owed. The preacher makes clear that Jesus did not automatically save all humanity: there will be a judgment, as Jesus taught, and there will be no second chance after this life. The invitation remains open: acknowledge your sins, repent of them, believe in Jesus and entrust your life to him. "Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts" (Hebrews 3:7-8). Do not flee from God.

Key Takeaways

It is pointless to flee from God or to manipulate him: the God of Jonah is not a God invented by our imagination.
Jonah owns his guilt instead of blaming others. Admitting your mistake, asking forgiveness and forgiving have real power.
God used Jonah's disobedience to bring pagan sailors to turn from idols to the living and true God.
What seems chaotic to us remains in the hands of a sovereign God who has never lost control of history.
The great fish shows the steadfast love of a God who protects his rebellious prophet and preserves his mission.

Personal Application

In what area are you trying right now to flee from God or to convince him with your own arguments?
Is there someone you have hurt and to whom you owe an apology, instead of waiting for time to erase things?
What do you really live for and sacrifice yourself for? What is at the center of your desires?
Has your wonder at God, the wonder of first love, faded over the years? What could revive it?
Facing a situation that looks chaotic to you, how can you rest your heart in the God who keeps control, like Habakkuk?

Verses Cited

Frequently Asked Questions

Why does Jonah ask the sailors to throw him into the sea?

Jonah has understood that it is pointless to run from God. He admits that the storm came because of him and owns his guilt before God and before the sailors. He offers to give his life so that these men, who had nothing to do with his disobedience, might be saved. The preacher sees a love that takes another's place: so that you may live, I will die.

Did the sailors in Jonah 1 really convert?

According to the preacher, yes. These pagan men first called on their own gods. They end up praying to the LORD, acknowledging his sovereignty, and then offering him sacrifices and making vows. This is what Paul calls turning from idols to the living and true God (1 Thessalonians 1:9), and a sign that God was already looking toward the nations, in line with the promise made to Abraham.

What does the great fish represent in the story of Jonah?

The text does not say what kind of animal it was. For the preacher, the essential point lies elsewhere: God prepared this fish to protect Jonah from drowning. In spite of the prophet's rebellion, God's steadfast love pursued him to preserve his life and his mission to Nineveh.