Jonah 1:6 So the shipmaster came to him, and said to him, What mean you, O sleeper? arise, call on your God, if so be that God will think on us… Notice the character of Jonah's sleep. It could not have been the sleep of innocence and confidence. Jesus Christ slept in the calm confidence of a mighty faith which knew that the elements were powerless to injure the Holy One of God. Jonah slept to escape from himself. He had already fled from the presence of God, but he could not escape from the sound of God's voice in his conscience. May we not see in this sleep of Jonah a type of the condition of many souls? As with him, so with us. God has given us a work to do for Him. But the work grows distasteful; so we gradually slacken our efforts, and perhaps at last abandon them altogether; and then try to escape from the presence of the Lord We lull ourselves more effectually to sleep by the expressed intention of making our peace with God at some far distant time, when we are less distracted by the world's claims upon us. But what are such intentions save as the dreams of an unhealthy sleep? Every landmark of our lives which tells us that another stage is reached, and our journey is so much nearer the close, is in point of fact as the voice of that heathen sailor who roused the sleeping prophet. It is no new or striking thing to say, that the time and manner of your death is uncertain. We need to take homo to ourselves the common-places of religion before we can actually realise them. How can we dare to continue to live in such a state as we dare not die in? (F. R. H. H. Noyes, D. D.) Parallel Verses KJV: So the shipmaster came to him, and said unto him, What meanest thou, O sleeper? arise, call upon thy God, if so be that God will think upon us, that we perish not. |
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