Practical Thoughts about Jonah.
In the following “Illustrative Applications” of the International lesson on Jonah, by H. Clay Trumbull, in the S. S. Times, there are pointed truths for all:— “The word of the Lord came, . . . saying, Arise, go to Nineveh, . . . and cry against it.” If the word of the Lord had come, saying, Stay where you are, and cry against Nineveh, the call to duty would not have been a very trying one. It is very easy to cry out against people's sins behind their backs. Almost everybody is ready to cry out against the sins of that city away over yonder, or of that people out there, or of those persons who are not present just now; but when the call is to go right to them, and say face to face all that you think of their character and doings—that is a very different matter. Jonah thought so in his day; most of us think so in our day. “Jonah rose up to flee unto Tarshish from the presence of the Lord.” It was not the going to Tarshish that was wrong; but it was the going to Tarshish when the Lord had directed the going to Nineveh. Tarshish may have been in itself a better place than Nineveh; but Tarshish was no place for a man who belonged in Nineveh. The real question for any man is not, Which is the better of two places opening before me? but, Which is the place to which God directs me? In answer to that question, the worse place may be the better one, and the better place may be the worse one. A man may run away from duty by going to a prayer-meeting when he has been hired to watch a factory for that night, or when he has a sick wife needing his constant attention. And, on the other hand, a man may be turning away from the call of God when he enters an honorable profession outside of the ministry, after being summoned of God to the ministry. God is to point the way to Nineveh or to Tarshish; then it is like rising up to flee from the presence of the Lord to go anywhere else than in that direction. “The Lord sent out a great wind into the sea, and there was a mighty tempest in the sea.” The winds and the waves are in the Lord's control. He can raise a tempest, and he can quiet it down again. There is a lesson of warning and a lesson of hope in this truth. It suggests the folly of defying the Lord; and it also suggests the folly of doubting the Lord. If we are over against the Lord, we have his tempests to fight, on land or on sea. If we are on the Lord's side, no tempest can harm us, or hinder our course for a moment, save as he directs it, and as it is for our true good. “But Jonah . . . was fast asleep.” It is a mistake to suppose that a troubled conscience always keeps a man awake. Some of the worst men in the world are good sleepers. It is a sad side of the sinner's experience, that his conscience is quickly blunted, so that it doesn't disturb his rest. And many of us sleep when we ought to be up and doing. The peril of those about us does not hinder our repose. The ability to sleep easily isn't always to our credit, any more than it was to Jonah's. “So they cast lots, and the lot fell upon Jonah.” There is no such thing as “chance” in this world. “Luck” is under God's control as surely as is “skill.” That which seems “the merest chance” is but an item in the plan of God. When once this truth has full possession of a child of God, he has no sense of security apart from God's protection of him; no sense of fear while in God's keeping, even though in the midst of abounding perils. Jonah said, “I fear the Lord, the God of Heaven.” His devotedness to the Lord had not been apparent in his course on that voyage. It was necessary that he should tell of it plainly, in order to its being known to those about him. It is right for a man to refrain from any officious show of his religious faith; but if those who are a man's companions, by day and by night, have to be told that he is a servant of God, there is something wrong in his case and in his course, as there was in Jonah's. “The men knew that he fled from the presence of the Lord, because he had told them.” There is a great deal of that kind of knowledge in the world; men know a thing because it has been told them. And men tell a great deal more about themselves than they think they do. Men are continually confessing their faults one to another, by unconscious disclosures of their story, or under the pressure of fear or remorse. Sin cannot be concealed, when God would have it made known. “He said, . . . Take me up, and cast me forth into the sea; so shall the sea be calm unto you.” There was no safety in that ship for anybody, so long as Jonah was there; for he was there in defiance of the Lord. And Jonah himself would be safer in the bottom of the sea in submission to the Lord, than on that ship in defiance of the Lord. So it is with any sinner who is fighting the Lord, or fleeing from the Lord. His only safety for himself, or for those linked with him, is through his quitting the place where he has no business to be, even though he has to be thrown into a stormy sea to get out of that place of duty-shirking.