1. The arduousness of the duty may have been one cause of the sin. He shrank from the service because of the hardships he supposed to be involved in it. He thought of the journey; of the probable reception of his message by the Ninevites; and of possible violence done to himself by them. If God calls to arduous duty, He is prepared to give all needed grace for doing it.

2. The mortification of his own vanity. God's mercy and forbearance on repentance Jonah feared would be a personal dishonour to him as a prophet. Rather than subject himself to the possibility of such mortification Jonah chose to decline the duty altogether. This motive argues a painful obtuseness of right human feelings. Learn —

1. In the prosecution of arduous and self-denying duties to seek the help of God, and not throw off our responsibilities by shunning them. Responsibility can only be met by the conscientious discharge of duty. Human nature often shrinks, as Jonah did, from this duty, but let us be faithful to God, and depend on Him for strength and blessing.

2. And let us discharge all our obligations to our fellew-men from a sincere desire to benefit them and please God. Let us not mingle personal vanity with any of our religious endeavours, nor be too anxious about our fame and reputation. Our record is on high, our judgment is with our God.

(Thomas Harding.)

1. It was a long way.

2. The thing to be done was very difficult.

3. It would be natural that he should despair of any great success.

4. He may have thought that, in the event of attaining a spiritual success, failure must come in another way. His own reputation would suffer. Over-consciousness of personal character, and over-carefulness for the Divine honour, were not of old, are not now so very uncommon.

5. The prophet had some dark forecast of evil to his own country from the probable turn which matters would take, if his mission at Nineveh should be successful. We cannot pass any severe and overwhelming judgment on Jonah. There is too much reason to fear that his kind of disobedience is not at all uncommon. Far oftener than many suppose, great and gifted spirits have shrunk back from great responsibilities. See cases of Moses, Gideon, etc.

(A. Raleigh, D. D.)

I. THE SCORNED MESSAGE OF MERCY. The prophet was the recipient of a Divine message. He was to declare to the people of Nineveh their sins, and summon them to repentance. This should have been an acceptable and agreeable duty. Why should Jonah have closed his ear against the Divine Word, shut up his heart against compassion for Nineveh, and fled from his duty? The answer uncovers at once God's compassion and Jonah's sin. Jonah's fault lay in narrowing the compassion of Jehovah, and exaggerating the claims of the chosen people. His pride of race overrode his humanity; his sectarian zeal consumed his charity.

1. What shall we say of one who refuses to enter upon a work of salvation such as this? Jonah sinned against God and humanity.

2. If we seek downward for the tap-root of Jonah's fault, where do we find it? In false views of God's nature.

3. There are still men and women — good but misguided people — who hold that the salvation of God is limited to their Church. In the light of Jonah's story, we may regard all such people with sincere pity, even while we condemn their presumptuous bigotry.

II. THE SINNER PURSUED BY GOD. If God is com passionate, He is also just. He pities Nineveh, but He punishes Jonah. He pursues the offending prophet with a rod of judgment. If we suppose that Jonah's sleep was one of self-security, we may imagine the sharp awakening to the sad truth of his condition.

III. A VERDICT OF THE SELF-CONDEMNED. The behaviour of the ship's crew at the climax of the storm presents an interesting study. We are insensibly drawn to these rough pagan mariners. We respect their manhood, we praise their virtues, we pity their gropings after truth and duty, and long that they and such as they might have knowledge of the one sufficient atonement for sin. We are drawn with even tenderer sympathy to Jonah. He stands there on the tossing deck, self-condemned indeed, but his whole attitude is noble. His fault has risen upon him at once in its full magnitude. He neither denies nor extenuates it; he confesses it fully, and he offers himself in atonement therefor. No wonder that the sailors, profoundly touched by Jonah's act, struggled to the verge of hope ere they could find heart to sacrifice this man.

1. We see here a wonderful illustration of the force of conscience when it is once awakened within the breast.

2. We have here a fine example of the operation of a genuine repentance. What must have beer the influence of this experience upon Jonah's after preaching?

IV. BURIAL IN THE DEEP. The miracle consisted not so much in the fact that Jonah was swallowed alive, as that he was kept alive within the fish for three days. We must place this miracle upon the same footing as other Scripture miracles. Our Lord teaches that this burial and resurrection was a sign of His own burial and resurrection (Matthew 12:40, 41).

(Henry C. M'Cook, D. D.)

I. HIS DISOBEDIENCE AND FLIGHT FROM GOD'S PRESENCE. All men at least try to believe that they have good reasons for their disobedience. What was Jonah's? Told in John4:2. It was thought that God was specially present in Israel. If he left the country he would not be at hand to be sent on missions. His fleeing was a way of resigning his prophetic office. Have none of us ever done as Jonah did? When God calls to service or duty, do we never go another way? How easy to fancy that, by some means, we can escape the Divine presence!

II. HIS ARREST AND EXPOSURE. Thus far all had seemed to go well with the renegade prophet. For a time the Lord allowed him to have his way. And so He does with us all. If one chooses to run from duty, to decline service, to defer obedience, God does not ordinarily interpose to prevent his doing it. The downward way

is commonly broad and smooth for a time. But, happily for us, God often finds means for the arrest of the disobedient. In the case of the fleeing prophet, He made use of the tempest. All sorts of persons pray in those great emergencies, which prove to us how utterly powerless we are. There is a feeling, which seems native to the human heart, that behind all physical ills there is a moral cause. Troubles come out of sin. These seamen, imagining, as it is so common to imagine, that unusual calamity is proof of unusual guilt, jumped to the conclusion that their present peril was due to the presence of some flagrant wrong-doer. They thought that, by means of the lot, the culprit might be detected. The lot fell on Jonah. In so unlikely a way his sin had found him out.

III. HIS CONFESSION AND SURRENDER. Crowding about this mysterious stranger, the questions of the sailors fell fast and thick. They wanted to have his whole story. Jonah made frank and full confession. There was no self-justification, but a declaration that God is to be reverenced and feared. And he put himself into God's hands. Understanding, as a prophet, that only by casting him into the sea could the tempest be stayed, he humbly, submissively, bowed his will to God's. It is precisely that spirit of penitence and trust which ever marks one as a sure subject of that mercy which, whatever befalls the body, saves the soul unto the life ever lasting.

IV. HIS CHASTISEMENT AND PRESERVATION. It is clear that Jonah's conduct had won the respect of the seamen, and touched their hearts. They would save him if they could. Jonah's preaching and conduct had convinced them of the true faith; for soon we find them offering sacrifice and making vows unto the Lord. True penitence does not save from present and outward ills. The forgiven still need correction, Note the blending of the providential and the miraculous in the story. Having brought a self-willed servant to account and repentance, and administered needed correction, it was the Lord's will to restore Jonah to the place he had deserted. The chief practical lesson is the great folly of attempting to escape the service or duty to which God may call us. To obey is easier than to flee. There are crosses and hardships in the way of obedience, but they are far lighter than those which are sure to overtake unbelief and self-will.

(Sermons by Monday Club.)

(Matthew M. Preston, M. A.)

(T. T. Carter.)

II. WHAT WAS THE OBJECT OF JONAH'S FLIGHT? Not to flee from the omniscience of God. The object of Jonah was to escape from standing before God as His prophet. He regarded the revelation and voice of God as in some way confined to Jewish territory. Though we, too, know that we cannot escape from the presence of God, we often fancy we can fly where the voice of God shall not be heard by us. When God calls men to go in one direction, and they like it not, immediately they set out to go in directly the opposite.

III. THE SUCCESSIVE STEPS OF JONAH'S FLIGHT.

1. He went down to Joppa. His journey was downward in more senses than one.

2. He found a ship, and paid his fare to Tarshish. Is there not quite a parable in that paying the fare? It was the last barrier that kept him a prisoner to his native land. Now he thinks he is secure.

3. He falls asleep. He is tired out. No obstacles have been placed in his way. It seems as if everything had been providentially arranged. Yes, Jonah, thou sleepest, but God sleeps not. Now God will have a beginning.

(James Menzies.)

(James Simpson.)

(R. A. Bedford, M. A.)

1. He rose up to flee from the presence of the Lord.

2. The fugitive from duty was degraded before his inferiors. Jonah's flight subjected him to the reproofs, examinations, and cross-examinations of heathen sailors.

3. Jonah, no doubt, suffered much at the near prospect of death.

4. His misery was prolonged in a living tomb.

5. The fugitive from duty had to do at length the work he first refused. When man contends with his Maker we may be certain who will be the victor. That Jonah needed much refining in the furnace of affliction is evident from the dross which remained after correction. Perhaps the Word of the Lord was never entrusted to a frailer earthen vessel. After Jonah had passed through the painful and humiliating punishments of disobedience, we find him still in a deplorable state of mind, and using most unbecoming language to God. Jonah should have known that when punishments are denounced as coming upon a nation, it is with the understanding that they continued in their sin. If both Jew and Gentile were acquainted with mercy as one of the glorious attributes of Jehovah, where was the room for Jonah's displeasure? But what Jonah did, we are all capable of doing, if not prevented by Divine grace. There are those who fly from duty, because pride hinders them from pursuing their most suitable calling, those who intrude into sacred places for which they were never designed; and generally, the unconverted.

(W. Holderness.)

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.)

I. IT IS A VERY EASY THING TO NEGLECT CHRISTIAN DUTY. All that Jonah did was easily done. So are neglect of prayer, Bible study, services, work, etc., easy now.

II. NEGLECT OF CHRISTIAN DUTY IS A MOST DANGEROUS PRACTICE. Jonah went to Tarshish at the peril of his temporal and spiritual life. Every Christian who allows himself to be led away into bypaths of spiritual indolence, lethargy, and neglect, will suffer great loss, will imperil his soul.

III. IT IS NOT FOR US TO CHOOSE OUR FIELD OF CHRISTIAN WORK. God sent Jonah to preach a short soul-stirring sermon to the Ninevites. How much more would be done if all Christians would just take the field God assigns them, and work with all their hearts for God and Souls.

IV. THE INFINITE FOLLY OF ATTEMPTING TO GET AWAY FROM THE PRESENCE OF GOD. "Whither shall I go from Thy presence?" The monarch who threw chains into the sea to bind it; the boys who undertook to count the stars; these were wise adventures compared with the folly of attempting to get away from God. Then "let us not sleep, as do others, but let us who are of the day be sober."

(W. Rodwell.)

(George Eliot.)

1. In this world the wicked often succeed, while the righteous are involved in distress. If any man be exempted from trouble in the present state, we should expect it to be a wicked man. The present is, with respect to the wicked, the only season of forbearance, the only time of indulgence. If any labour under a peculiar series of sufferings, we should expect him to be a saint. Because the present is, to the believer, a state of discipline. We cannot, however, conclude either that all the afflicted are righteous, or that it is only the tabernacle of the robber that prospers.

2. All the success of the wicked is confined to external objects. It would be affectation to say that man is independent of these.

3. The success of the wicked is but momentary. Duration is an important measure of value.

4. The worst moral effects are produced by success on the conduct of the wicked. But consequences cannot always be considered as a Standard for regulating judgment.

5. The successful sinner would tremble did he look forward to the sufferings which must eventually overtake his crimes.

II. THE GROUNDS ON WHICH DIVINE WISDOM PROCEEDS IN SUCH DISPENSATIONS.

1. Previous to such trials the sinner is already warned of his danger in the Word. It is to this men are to look for a regulating law.

2. Such trials are seldom permitted until conscience has been grossly violated.

3. No external obstacle can stop the career of the sinner.

4. Abused grace is properly and justly withdrawn.

5. These scenes of trial discover to others the dispositions that were previously in power.

III. THE MARKS BY WHICH JUDICIAL MAY BE DISTINGUISHED FROM SANCTIFIED SUCCESS. If sanctified it follows you in a course of obedience to the Word. It is not a partial or incidental circumstance. It recognises God as its origin. The effects will show whence the prosperity proceeds.

(James Simpson.)

I. LIFE HAS ITS GREAT OCCASIONS, AND WOE TO THE MAN WHO FAILS TO SUCCESSFULLY GRAPPLE WITH THEM. God signally honoured Jonah by selecting him as the first preacher to the heathen world. Human life does not always remain on the same key. Sometime, some where, God arrests the old monotonous tune, and strikes the keynote to a loftier anthem. Everything depends on how we catch the new tone, follow the leader, and master the music. How possible it is to be unequal to our opportunity, to let it pass unimproved, and to be doing a little paltry work, — to be mistaking fuss for energy, and an idle industry for that holy consecration which absorbs every power, and ennobles the man by the sublimity of its motives and aims. There are hours in the lives of most men, compared with which all after hours are poor and commonplace, — great critical hours, pregnant with the possibilities of manhood and destiny. To fall below such crises is a calamity which the future can never repair. Society is full of poor men, both temporally and spiritually, because they did not manfully grapple with the great occasions of life.

2. OPPORTUNE CIRCUMSTANCES DO NOT OF NECESSITY IMPLY DIVINE APPROVAL. Here we see that a man may be strangely favoured by circumstances, who is in open rebellion against God. Rightly to interpret circumstances is one of the most difficult things in life. And a man who has become loose at the conscience may so interpret them as to embolden and fortify himself in a life of sin. There are people who make circumstances into a kind of Bible, and argue that, after all, it is impossible they can be so very bad, or Providence would not thus conspire to further their purposes. When a man gets himself mixed up with iniquity, it is not much wonder that he tries to set up a kind of supernatural wisdom of his own, as a sort of self-vindication. It is quite possible for a man so to put circumstances before his mind as to be fearfully misled by them. Much charity should be exercised towards those whose very circumstances invite their further continuance in sin. Many a man has had reason to thank God that the ship left before he got to Joppa; that was the only thing that saved him from disaster and perhaps destruction.

III. A MAN MAY IGNORE THE CLAIMS OF GOD AND YET BE SCRUPULOUS IN HIS OBSERVANCE OF THE LAWS OF SOCIAL JUSTICE AND EQUITY. Jonah "paid his fare." Honest with the owner of the ship, but dishonest with the Owner of the universe. God has claims upon us as well as man: and any man's integrity is partial and ruinously defective that does not honour both claims..

IV. THE WICKED MAN IS A PUBLIC CALAMITY, A SOCIAL CURSE. No matter how much the sinner may have things his own way, God can head him off, frustrate his purposes, and convert the very elements that were most friendly to his progress into instruments of punishment and death. Learn that there is a right and a wrong way of settling things. We must have a settlement with God on a basis of mediation and righteousness, or the sea will always be rough.

(T. Kelly.)

(Christian Age.)

1. Accept this feature of the case as a starting-point. Obedience is economy; disobedience is expensive.

2. This was only a small part of the fare that Jonah paid. Only the first instalment. In the second place, he paid his fare in the thwarting of his purposes. He made more haste than speed. The ready way was not the right way. If you will be disobedient, you must pay your fare in the thwarting of your purposes.

3. As part of the fare the prophet had to pay for his disobedience. I mention his moodiness and peevishness.

4. Part of the fare was the withdrawal of Jehovah's presence.

5. He paid part of his fare in the loss of reputation. Regard to reputation was the only defence he made. Reputation may be overestimated, If the means is exalted into an end; if reputation becomes the be-all and end-all of the ministry, there is no limit to the harm that may accrue. For the sake of reputation Jonah declined tim call of God. And his disobedience was its own punishment.

(John A. Macfadyen.)

I. THE SACRIFICES REQUIRED OF THE SINNER. The boasted pleasure of the sinner is obtained at a very disproportioned expense of time — of labeler — and of substance: and moreover to it is freely sacrificed not only health, reason, conscience, but also the precious soul.

II. THE SACRIFICES REQUIRED OF THOSE WHO ARE THE FRIENDS OF RELIGION.

1. Religion does not require the renunciation of any lawful enjoyment.

2. Religion does require of its followers certain worldly sacrifices. Such as a seventh portion of time. Jehovah demands of all His worshippers —

3. The total surrender of their persons. Your talents, with all their energies; your will, with all its propensities; your affections, with all their fervour, are exclusively and supremely His. The members of the body too are become instruments of righteousness unto righteousness.

4. When sinners come to the Saviour they present Him with their most cheerful services.

5. The severest sacrifice that religion requires is that of our unholy desires. The service is severe, but the command is absolute.

III. COMPARE THESE SYSTEMS. Each has something to enjoy. The Christian needs not fear to grant to the sensualist his luxuries; or to acknowledge the general depression of the faithful. To ascertain the several claims of these systems observe —

1. That, while all the demands of religion are just, those of iniquity are the vexatious claims of a tryant.

2. The demands of religion are most gracious, whereas those of a tyrant are insatiable.

3. The services of religion are beneficial; those of the world destructive.

4. The sacrifices of religion shall be richly repaid. Sin also has its wages, and to the uttermost farthing they shall be paid. Choose then what master you will serve.Listen not —

1. To the seductions of pleasure.

2. Be not afraid of the reproaches cast upon religion.

3. Be truly wise. Listen to the cautions of Divine wisdom.

(James Simpson.)

(Homiletic Magazine.)

I. BROAD WAY TO DESTRUCTION. Fare?

1. Loss of conscience.

2. Loss of character. Character is built up by thoughts, words, deeds, little by little.

3. Loss of Divine image.

4. Loss of soul. No escape. "The wages of sin is death."

II. NARROW WAY TO LIFE. Fare? Yes, we must pay the fare. The results are —

1. Noble character. God's building.

2. Uplifting influence. People respect.

3. Satisfaction. Duty done; clear conscience.

4. Gain Heaven. Two ways are before you; which one will you take?

(Homiletic Review.)

     5407   merchants
     6109   alienation

Jonah 1:1-3

     1055   God, grace and mercy
     4926   delay, human
     5714   men
     7758   preachers, call
     8410   decision-making, examples

Jonah 1:1-6

     8616   prayerlessness

Jonah 1:1-10

     5178   running

Jonah 1:3-5

     5587   trade

Jonah 1:3-15

     5517   seafaring

Christian Graces.
FAITH. FAITH! Peter saith, faith, in the very trial of it, is much more precious than gold that perisheth. If so, what is the worth or value that is in the grace itself? Faith is so great an artist in arguing and reasoning with the soul, that it will bring over the hardest heart that it hath to deal with. It will bring to my remembrance at once, both my vileness against God, and his goodness towards me; it will show me, that though I deserve not to breathe in the air, yet God will have me an heir …
John Bunyan—The Riches of Bunyan

Whether Divination by Drawing Lots is Unlawful?
Objection 1: It would seem that divination by drawing lots is not unlawful, because a gloss of Augustine on Ps. 30:16, "My lots are in Thy hands," says: "It is not wrong to cast lots, for it is a means of ascertaining the divine will when a man is in doubt." Objection 2: There is, seemingly, nothing unlawful in the observances which the Scriptures relate as being practiced by holy men. Now both in the Old and in the New Testament we find holy men practicing the casting of lots. For it is related …
Saint Thomas Aquinas—Summa Theologica

The Careless Sinner Awakened.
1, 2. It is too supposable a case that this Treatise may come into such hands.--3, 4. Since many, not grossly vicious, fail under that character.--5, 6. A more particular illustration of this case, with an appeal to the reader, whether it be not his own.--7 to 9. Expostulation with such.--10 to 12. More particularly--From acknowledged principles relating to the Nature of Got, his universal presence, agency, and perfection.--13. From a view of personal obligations to him.--14. From the danger Of this …
Philip Doddridge—The Rise and Progress of Religion in the Soul

Sovereignty and Human Responsibility
"So then every one of us shall give account of himself to God" (Rom. 14:12). In our last chapter we considered at some length the much debated and difficult question of the human will. We have shown that the will of the natural man is neither Sovereign nor free but, instead, a servant and slave. We have argued that a right conception of the sinner's will-its servitude-is essential to a just estimate of his depravity and ruin. The utter corruption and degradation of human nature is something which …
Arthur W. Pink—The Sovereignty of God

Sign Seekers, and the Enthusiast Reproved.
(Galilee on the Same Day as the Last Section.) ^A Matt. XII. 38-45; ^C Luke XI. 24-36. ^c 29 And when the multitudes were gathering together unto him, ^a 38 Then certain of the scribes and Pharisees answered him, saying, Teacher, we would see a sign from thee. [Having been severely rebuked by Jesus, it is likely that the scribes and Pharisees asked for a sign that they might appear to the multitude more fair-minded and open to conviction than Jesus had represented them to be. Jesus had just wrought …
J. W. McGarvey—The Four-Fold Gospel

Nature of Covenanting.
A covenant is a mutual voluntary compact between two parties on given terms or conditions. It may be made between superiors and inferiors, or between equals. The sentiment that a covenant can be made only between parties respectively independent of one another is inconsistent with the testimony of Scripture. Parties to covenants in a great variety of relative circumstances, are there introduced. There, covenant relations among men are represented as obtaining not merely between nation and nation, …
John Cunningham—The Ordinance of Covenanting

Jonah
The book of Jonah is, in some ways, the greatest in the Old Testament: there is no other which so bravely claims the whole world for the love of God, or presents its noble lessons with so winning or subtle an art. Jonah, a Hebrew prophet, is divinely commanded to preach to Nineveh, the capital of the great Assyrian empire of his day. To escape the unwelcome task of preaching to a heathen people, he takes ship for the distant west, only to be overtaken by a storm, and thrown into the sea, when, by …
John Edgar McFadyen—Introduction to the Old Testament