Jonah 1:4-6 But the LORD sent out a great wind into the sea, and there was a mighty tempest in the sea, so that the ship was like to be broken.… I. A TEMPESTUOUS PROVIDENCE REPROVED HIM. Jonah, aroused, creeps on deck. What a scene met him! The sea in horrible tumult. The fury of the wind. The ship "...up and down From the base of the wave to the billow's crown!" The bronzed sailors wondering what would be the end! The storm is reproving him. No miraculous wind, perhaps. Still, God's servant with strong reproof: "Guilty Jonah, awake! arise! return! To thy God; to thy work! Duty may be left; it can never be escaped till done!" Sleep had been a part of his flight. Now he was awake. Was conscience awake? Could he think? What did he think? Or was he still escaping from himself in the very tumult of the tempest that came to awake him? To not a few life is like a long slumber. Thought, imagination, love, are asleep; their noble possibilities awake only to the gains and joys of this little spot of earth and fleeting day of time. But not without reproving storms, of loss, trouble, affliction, bereavement. It is well that the man suffer loss that he be not lost. The voice of circumstances is the voice of God. II. THE EXAMPLE OF THE SAILORS REPROVED JONAH. They, each man of them, prayed. Each to his favourite god. Earnestly, with faith in the efficacy of prayer, they "cried every man unto his god." Prayerless Jonah (how can the backslider pray?) is reproved by those praying sailors. Their prayer is one of ignorance, ignorant earnestness. He has no prayer at all; and he, too, a prophet of the Lord! And how the heathen's passionate cries to his god rebuke our restraint of and coldness in prayer! How the full-hearted earnestness of (it may be) the illiterate Christian reproves our heartless accuracies and formal worship! How the backslider is shamed by the cry of the penitent! "Arise, call upon thy God!" III. THE APPEAL OF THE CAPTAIN REPROVED JONAH. He, respectful in all his surprise and suppressed indignation, goes down and himself awakes Jonah. A heathen, he is faithful in all his ship. Not man or boy aboard but he calls to prayer. And even the strange passenger must be called as well. A pattern master this. He had a religious as well as secular care for those under him; was not ashamed to show his earnest spiritual interest in this strange Hebrew. A pattern for all masters and mistresses on sea and land. Jonah should have been reprover, and he is reproved; a teacher, and is being taught; prayerless, when he shouht have been leading others in prayer. "What meanest thou, O sleeper?" Thou, backslider today, why sleep? Awake to thy peril! Call upon the great Deliverer! He will think upon you. His thought shall be salvation. You shall not perish. - G.T.C. Parallel Verses KJV: But the LORD sent out a great wind into the sea, and there was a mighty tempest in the sea, so that the ship was like to be broken. |
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