Jonah 1:3 But Jonah rose up to flee to Tarshish from the presence of the LORD, and went down to Joppa; and he found a ship going to Tarshish… "Jonah rose up." So far then he was obedient. No. He only rose up "to flee to Tarshish." His mind was made up, before he arose, to disobey. We sin in thought, resolution, will, before we take a single wrong step. Had Jonah sufficient grounds for his disobedient act? Was not his ministry in Israel a great failure? And if a great failure among his privileged kindred, might he not reasonably infer it would be a greater failure among untutored and degraded heathen? Moreover, it was a new expedition- there was no precedent for him to follow. And did not he fear that God might turn from His purpose? In the face of these considerations it may he asserted that he had no honest reasons for shirking duty, for running away from God. Our failures may be our greatest successes. I. HIS DISOBEDIENT ACT WAS WILFUL. It was not done without deliberation. It was not done without breaking through moral restraints. Jonah had a stern battle to fight with the checks of conscience and the promptings of his better nature. Through a whole "bodyguard" of moral influences, monitions, voices, hindrances, Jonah had to cut his way to Joppa for Tarshish. This made his act of disobedience all the more criminally wilful. The harder the path to ruin the greater the guilt and punishment. II. THE ACT WAS FOOLISH. He attempted — 1. The impossible. The Presence like an all-encompassing atmosphere hemmed him in — beyond it he could not get. God meets man inevitably at every turn of life. 2. He abandoned the indispensable. He thought he could do without God, and so ventured on the mad experiment. God is a necessity. 3. He undertook the unmanageable. In fleeing from God, he flew in the face of God. In trying to escape Him, he came into collision with Him. No man is sufficient for such an engagement. How foolish is all sin! Disobedience is moral mania. III. HIS ACT WAS ENCOURAGED BY OPPORTUNE CIRCUMSTANCES. He "found a ship going to Tarshish." The accidental favoured the intentional. It so happened that the ship was freighted for Tarshish, and Jonah came on the quay just in time to pay his fare and get on board. Don't blame the ship, but blame the prophet. Don't censure the opportunities, but censure the disposition which seized and made them auxiliaries of evil intentions. Occasion for sin is no Divine warrant to sin. 1. Circumstances are rendered moral or immoral in their bearing on human actions, only as they further goodness or facilitate disobedience. 2. Opportunities in the way of transgression are accidental and not Divinely appointed, which if availed of to accelerate rebellious flight will entail heavier penal consequences. 3. The ready way is not always the right way. IV. THE ACT WAS EXPENSIVE. He might have gone down to Nineveh for less than it cost him to go to Tarshish. He paid his fare in a very expensive sense. It cost him his peace of mind, his conscience approval, his official honour, mortification of spirit, risk of life, and peril of soul. As a mere matter of economy it is wiser and better to be good than sinful. Sin's pleasures, sin's fashions, sin's companions, sin's vanities are all prodigiously expensive. (J. O. Keen, D. D.) Parallel Verses KJV: But Jonah rose up to flee unto Tarshish from the presence of the LORD, and went down to Joppa; and he found a ship going to Tarshish: so he paid the fare thereof, and went down into it, to go with them unto Tarshish from the presence of the LORD. |
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