Justifying Jonah | AdventAI

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Jul 22, 1875

Justifying Jonah.

Jonah’s attempt to run away from the Lord when commanded to go to Nineveh was a foolish and wicked act, all must admit; but there is one thing told of him that is very much to his credit: “He paid his fare” on board the ship that was to bear him away to Tarshish.

To be sure, he was directly disobeying God, and he knew it, but then, he settled his bill with the sea captain. He was leaving that great city wherein were more than sixscore thousand persons to perish unwarned; but he fulfilled his obligations to the ship owners in the matter of passage money. He involved his shipmates in the fearful danger of the storm that was already gathering for his arrest; but he would not cheat them out of their due. He was turning his back upon one of the grandest opportunities ever given to mortal; but he handed over his money at the office like a prince.

He was evidently none of your mean sneaks, who, in running to destruction, try to go as dead-heads. Jonah went on his way like a man.

How often, by some such reasoning as the above, we have heard men make out a good case for themselves or for others in the case of flagrant and atrocious acts. Only yesterday, talking with a young man who has become almost a common drunkard, turning away from home, duty, and great prospects of usefulness, he admitted the evil state of the case, but soon became eloquent over his refusal to play off some wicked joke upon a comrade, and declaring, “You’ll never catch me going back on a fellow like that,” became apparently as self-complacent as if the score was fully righted.

A man passes me often who frequently speaks of his present deplorable condition, especially if a little the worse for liquor; but swears he is no hypocrite; “all the bad there is in old J—, he shows right out.” And he uses this single virtue to cover the destruction of home, family, and manhood.

A woman often admits to me the neglect of duties that she owes to God, herself and household, but gains a modicum of comfort from the fact that she “always goes to church, rain or shine.”

I know a young man who refused to obey the call of God, as clearly given as was ever that to Jonah, and is satisfying conscience by the assurance of honesty in a very different and self-appointed sphere.

There is much of this Jonah business on every hand. Men are sharp in their dealings, even to rank dishonesty, but they will talk well and profess better. They cheat and shave on the right hand and the left, but they found a scholarship or seminary, endow a college, or build a church. They are debauched in life, and help to debase their circle; but they are generous-hearted fellows. They are helping to undermine every good institution in a community; but they are kind and obliging neighbors. They bribe and buy their places of power and honor; but then, they are on our side, sound on the main issue. They kill men with bludgeons, shoot them with concealed weapons, but they were once good Sabbath-school boys, or have a frank and interesting countenance.

Because the men that cheat, swindle, and murder us, are possessed of some single excellent virtue, we are asked to set it over against their many nefarious acts and terrible failures in character and life, and call it even.

Well, if the Lord is satisfied we will try to be. How is it? We read that in, spite of all this honesty and promptness in the payment of his bill, a great wind was sent out into the sea that would not subside until the runaway was thrown overboard, and brought to terms; teaching, as it would seem, by the voice of the wind and the waves that a man needs something more than a single virtue to justify him before his Maker. Not that we would underrate or despise the admirable traits that sometimes appear in wicked and debased lives; we only utter our protest against the attempt, so often made, to make them atone for the sin and failure by which they are surrounded.

It would seem as if we were in a measure all associated together in this; poor Jonahs, all of us, satisfied with one little pet virtue, that blooms, perhaps, like a flower adorning a corpse. One has faith, or what passes for it; Peter tells us to add to it virtue, but the possessor is satisfied without any addition, and becomes, and continues, a dawdler. One has vim or virtue, storms around, and tramps rough-shod over the sensibilities of finer natures. The apology offered for all the unnecessary pain inflicted is, “I am always pretty plain spoken, and believe in giving my mind.” And it is fully expected that this excellence of plain speech will excuse all the harshness with which it was uttered and the suffering it caused.

The way we help one another to this same self-complacency over small virtues cherished in the midst of flagrant wrong is, perhaps, the worst part of the story.

Suppose, when the prophet was thrown overboard, in the storm of which we read, the whale had not swallowed him and carried him safely to the land, but he had been thoroughly and terribly drowned, his body thrown upon the beach, dead, and some of us ministers had been called to preach his funeral sermon, don’t you think we could have made enough of that one virtue to have rounded Jonah up into a perfect character?

Of course we should have passed lightly over his rank disobedience, making some general remarks upon the difficulty of always recognizing duty; the cruelty of leaving a great city unwarned of its impending destruction would not be dwelt upon; the meanness of involving others in the destruction that was seeking him would be passed over altogether; but when we came to that fare business, now look out for enlargement. An honest act! Honesty, a good thing in itself, helps to keep business upon a sure basis. This act revealed an admirable character, showed that the man had regard for the rights of his fellows, etc.

If we remember rightly, we have heard funeral discourses that were on some such plan as that. They were like a pyramid standing on its apex; very satisfactory, without doubt, to the minister as a work of art; very consoling, it is to be hoped, to the friends; but very false and dangerous in the eyes of everybody else.

Not that we would have had Jonah’s grand mistake and sin dwelt upon over his dead body, provided he had died; but least of all would we have conveyed in funeral discourses, or in any other manner, the impression that a single virtue atones for a life of disobedience, or can take the place of fellowship with God,

and whole-hearted service of our fellow-men. If, by reason of imperfect knowledge and feeble authority, we cannot imitate the beautiful truthfulness of Scripture in setting forth men’s faults, we can, at all events, in its simple and honest treatment of their virtues.—Sel.