See Jonah Sleep (Jonah 1:4-16)

You can say the right words about God and still be running from Him. That’s the uncomfortable tension we sit with as Jonah calmly claims he “fears the Lord” while doing everything possible to avoid the assignment of mercy God gave him. We unpack how good theology can turn into polished hypocrisy, and why a life of disobedience always leaks out eventually, even when we try to keep it hidden.

A sudden storm turns Jonah’s private rebellion into a public crisis. While veteran sailors panic, pray, and toss cargo to survive, Jonah sleeps in the hold with a “do not disturb” posture toward both people and God. The captain’s blunt command, “Get up and call on your God,” becomes a haunting moment for anyone who has ever been corrected by a nonbeliever. Then the lot falls on Jonah, the questions fly, and the narrative forces the issue of identity: what do you do when your claimed calling and your lived choices no longer match?

The biggest surprise isn’t Jonah’s confession, it’s the sailors’ response. They fight to save his life, pray to Yahweh, and after the sea goes calm, they worship with sacrifice and vows. We close with two anchor truths for Christian discipleship and Bible study readers: God can still work through a failing servant, and God doesn’t discard the runaway He intends to restore.

If this helped you think more honestly about obedience, repentance, and God’s relentless grace, subscribe, share this with a friend, and leave a review. What part of Jonah’s “do not disturb” attitude do you recognize in yourself?

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Transcript

Caught While Running From God

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I am a Hebrew, that's true. I fear, that word means I am in awe of and in compliance with the God of heaven. Nothing could be at this moment further from the truth, and Jonah knows it. Listen, what's happening here is he is responding with the right answer. As if he doesn't want to add to his crimes. I'm a Hebrew, and I follow God who, by the way, created everything. It's good theology, but it is absolute hypocrisy. Came across this article when a man decided to uh go to a Cincinnati Reds ball game with his girlfriend. He knew he was he was uh already in trouble with the law, he had broken parole, no one knew where he was. On top of that, he had failed to appear in court for a date with uh a judge. Uh during the game, you know how they have the the uh the kiss cam? They try to get couples to kiss, and then, well, wouldn't you know it? They spot he and his girlfriend, put their picture on the big screen for 30,000 people to see, and before the end of the game, he's arrested. His uh lawyer later complained, and I quote, out of 30,000 people in the ballpark that day, my client is the one who will not only get his face put on the screen, but his parole officer just so happened to be the same ballgame. Imagine that, just caught in a sea of faces, he is, he's caught. Well, it reminded me of uh this prodigal prophet. He failed to make his court appearance in the courtroom of the Ninevehite king. He is evidently under the impression that he can somehow run in the opposite direction and hide from the surveillance lens of an omniscient, omnipresent God. Now, if you're just joining us in this study through the journal of Jonah, you could easily summarize what we've learned thus far in one very simple sentence. God said, Jonah, go. And Jonah said, No. Or you could put it in a little longer sentence. God said, Jonah, I want you to go and deliver a message of mercy. And Jonah said, God, I would rather resign and run than see the Ninevites repent. And so Jonah, this prophet, has resigned his commission. He's turned in his prophet's badge and his hospital pass card. He's taken the fish off the bumper of his cart, and uh, he's given all of his manuscripts to the younger prophets, you know, to use because he doesn't need them anymore, and he's heading in the opposite direction, which happens to be the coast of Spain. But he is about to discover that God has not accepted his resignation, and God is going to give Jonah some time to do some deep thinking. I didn't think you'd catch it there for a minute. I really didn't. Now, what happens in chapter one can be divided. What happens next into three dramatic scenes, each of them with their own subtitle. Scene number one, don't disturb. Scene number two, don't ask. Scene number three, don't turn around. Scene one opens in verse four. Let's back up to verse three and get a running start. But Jonah rose up to flee to Tarshish from the presence of the Lord. So he went down to Joppa, found a ship which was going to Tarshish, paid the fare, went down into it to go with them to Tarshish from the presence of the Lord. And the Lord hurled a great wind on the sea, and there was a great storm on the sea, so that the ship was about to break up. What wonderfully descriptive yet terrifying language you could render the Hebrew text to read. And the Lord

Scene One: The Sleeping Prophet

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picked up a great wind and hurled it on the sea. Now, what you've got immediately is a spontaneous prayer meeting that's going to take place on deck by extremely terrified sailors. In fact, it says, then the sailors, verse 5, became afraid, and every man cried to his God, and they threw the cargo which was in the ship into the sea and a light for them. But Jonah gone down below into the hold of the ship. The word for sailor, I thought was interesting. It comes from the Hebrew noun used for salt. And to this day, old fishermen are called old salts, aren't they? These old salts are immediately calling out to the God that they happen to believe in. These men are veteran sailors, by the way. They have ridden, more than likely, most of them, certainly the captain will be introduced to it in a minute, they've ridden through a lot of storms. But this storm was so suddenly, uh swiftly upon them that they assumed it would take God, any God, to get them out of it alive. And they were right. And so, right in the middle of verse 5, while they're praying, we're informed that Jonah has gone down below into the hold of the ship. He's lain down and he's fallen fast asleep. There are a lot of ironies in this paragraph. I'll try to pull out some of them for you, but it's ironic to me that here the pagans are praying and the prophet is sleeping. While they're praying, Jonah is sleeping. The sailors are literally tossing out everything that isn't nailed down. Now, Jonah isn't just sleeping. The end of verse 5 tells us that he is sound asleep. Your translation may read, he's in a deep sleep. He is fast, you could render it, he's fast asleep. I thought it was funny that the Septuagint, which is the Greek translation of the Old Testament, literally translated this verb to snore. This is centuries ago, and they translated snore. Jonah is literally snoring away. That's probably how the captain found him located. How many of you men sleep like the prophets of God? Amen. We'll forget that he's a rebellious prophet in the meantime. But it's funny when Hurricane Fran swept through, you know, our county. My wife told me the next morning, honey, you slept through Hurricane Fran. I slept through the whole thing. She said, You snored right through everything. And I thought, well, it's a spiritual gift as far as I'm concerned. What a way to ride out the storm. Well, Jonah's got this do not disturb sign on the door for the sailors. And he's got a he's got a do-not-disturb sign on his heart for God. And he is literally snoring through the storm of the century. And verse 6 tells us, look there, so the captain approached him and said, How is it that you are sleeping? Literally, how can you sleep through this storm? Get up! Call on your God. Interesting when faced with natural disasters, how pagans often turn to prayer. Suddenly these old souls are praying fervent prayers. The captain wants to make sure he has every base covered. He's convinced there's some God behind this storm, and he wants to make sure he's got every God covered. So he grabs Jonah by the lapels and he pulls him to his feet and he barks, Wake up, man! Start praying to whatever God you believe in. Quick! And for the first time, as Jonah's aroused from that deep sleep, he feels the reeling and the rocking of that boat. He probably hears the wind screeching and howling. He probably hears the timber creaking, and he knows immediately, he knows which God is behind this storm. He's run from God. God has been waiting for him to arrive. Listen, God is always ahead of you and me. In fact, he's behind us, he's above us, he's beneath us. Whenever you run, he's already there. In fact, Jonah is the only man on board who knew the true and living God, but at the moment he isn't on speaking terms with him, is he? There's no doubt in my mind, though, that Jonah can hear the voice of God in the howling of that wind. One more observation I want to make from scene one. You notice what the captain says at the end of verse six, where he says, Get up and call on your God. Now notice the next phrase, perhaps your God will be concerned about us so that we will not perish. The captain is urging him. It's interesting. He says, you know, why aren't you praying to your God? Isn't it interesting how pagans can hold a believer to a higher standard than the believer will hold himself to whenever he's disobedient. The world knows how you're to live. And me. Don't ever doubt it. And the captain is urging Jonah, maybe your God will feel sorry for us. He can translate it that way. Don't miss this irony. I mean, this old salt speaking words that I'm convinced were like salt in the wound of Jonah's rebellious heart, and it hit him like a shot of rock salt. He has resigned from the service of God because he does not want God to feel sorry for the Ninevites. And now he's in the middle of a storm that's about to take the ship to the bottom of the sea, and he's being asked for his God to feel sorry for them. Supposed to be the same prayer request an obedient prophet would make in the land of Nineveh. And now it's requested of him on the Mediterranean Sea, and I know it hit Jonah hard. But Jonah won't pray it. In fact, you won't find him praying in chapter one. He won't even pray that prayer. He's not going to pray for them either. Didn't you read the sign? Do not disturb. Don't bother my life. Why can't I just hide away? I just want to sleep. I want to wake up and get off the boat in Spain. That's my plan, that's my life. And I'm not praying for pagans. Don't disturb. That's my life motto now. See, this is an extremely prodigal prophet. He won't even pray then for them. Now the second scene opens, and the subtitle again could be simply stated, Don't Ask. The pagans have called a prayer meeting. That isn't working. So they move to the next thing, and they're a lot more familiar with this one. Rolling dice. Verse 7, each man said to his mate, Come, let us cast lots that we may learn on whose account this calamity has struck us. So they cast lots, and the lot fell on Jonah. You see these pagans and this dice? Perhaps small stones, the Arabic counterpart to this word referred to colored stones, all one color except for one, which was a different color, and they'd roll them, and you'd have a stone assigned to you. It could have been pieces of wood, and they would literally draw them to see who got the longest

Scene Two: Questions Jonah Hates

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piece, and that person would be the winner. And Jonah wins. He's got to be thinking, good grief, this is my lucky day. And as Jonah, as Jonah draws the longest piece, or the, or he gets the colored stone immediately. He is besieged with a flurry of questions. Verse 8. Then they said to him, Tell us now, on whose account has this calamity struck us? What is your occupation? Where do you come from? What is your country? From what people are you? Just bang, bang, bang, bang, bang. They're terrified. And they're convinced now this is the problem. Can you imagine this scene? The wind is whipping across this deck. The ship is rolling up and down. Hardly able these men are to stand. They're probably rain drenched. They're drawing straws or pulling sticks or throwing stones, and it's this stranger. He's been keeping to himself. You know, he, he's the something's going on there. You could render the first question that they ask him this way. What have you done? What have you done? And you could render the next question. You notice that one, in fact, is translated in fact this way. What is your occupation? What's your occupation? Oh, that's the that is the last question Jonah ever wanted to answer. What do you do for a living? God. What's your occupation? What do you do with your time? Can you believe it? God has pinned him down at sea. Jonah, it's obvious your God is upset. This incredible storm is from some God, and now we know it's your God. What did you do to bring this on us? And by the way, what is your occupation? Now he can no longer say with authority and conviction that I am a prophet of God. He can't say that. Isn't it a wonderful thing when you do something right and somebody notices and asks you, you know, hey, aren't you a aren't you one of those Christians? Isn't it a terrible moment when you're doing something wrong and somebody says, hey, aren't you? Aren't you one of those Christians? It's a tragic thing when a believer's sin is exposed by the world. And Jonah answers in verse 9, look there, I'm a Hebrew, and I fear the Lord God of heaven who made the sea and the dry land. This is this is classic. I am amazed by this. Jonah is still maintaining his composure. In fact, when he responds with, I am a Hebrew, that's the way Jewish people would speak to pagans. I am a Hebrew and I fear the God of heaven, who, by the way, made the sea and the earth. I'm amazed by this. He has a cool detachment to their panic, as if he's on the good side. I am a Hebrew, that's true. I fear, that word means I am in awe of and in compliance with the God of heaven. That's not true. That's absolutely wrong. Nothing could be at this moment further from the truth, and Jonah knows it. Listen, what's happening here is he is responding with the right answer. As if he doesn't want to add to his crimes. He is given perfect theology. I'm a Hebrew, and I follow God who, by the way, created everything. It's good theology, but it is absolute hypocrisy for him to say, I fear, I am in compliance with, I am surrendered to this God. It's almost as if he doesn't want to add to his sins that he knows he's already committed. So he responds carefully, discreetly. According to the Chicago Sun-Times, an article about a woman named Nita, she didn't seem to be the kind of person that would be involved in a police pursuit, but she was. After police chief Mike Hutter attempted to pull her over for a traffic violation, it wasn't a serious one, just pull her over, she refused to stop. The article went on to say, even after flipping on his lights and siren, instead of pulling over, the 66-year-old woman pulled away from him. Police would follow her through three counties, and it didn't end until the state police put a spike strip in the road in front of Friedman's car. After driving over it, three of her tires went flat. She still tried to keep going, but escape became impossible, and she finally pulled over and stopped. What astounded the police and caught my attention in the article was the fact that throughout the entire ordeal, Miss Friedman never went over the speed limit. She observed all the traffic laws, even stopping at one point behind a vehicle that was making a left turn. What irony. While running from the law, she is determined not to break the law. That's what's happening here. Jonah is trying not to discredit God while he is in the midst of disobeying God. He is speaking respectfully of God while he is disrespecting God with his life. As if he doesn't want to add to the crimes. Now, evidently these sailors pulled more out of Jonah than just that simple answer because verse 10, if you'll note there, tells us that Jonah had also told him he was running away, he was fleeing from the presence of the Lord. And they immediately saw through his foolish hypocrisy. See, he said, I fear the Lord God of heaven, who made the sea and the dry land, and by the way, I'm also running from him. And they they see through it immediately. Jonah, you say that your God made the land and the sea. Let's see, where are we now? We're on the sea. That's great. Now what? Isn't it tragic when pagans can see it and prophets can't? Isn't it tragic when the world exposes the sins of Christians that Christians can't quite see? Scene one, but don't disturb her. Scene two is don't ask. But they did. And now scene three opens with the subtitle, but don't turn around. In other words, I'm still not going back to Nineveh. Look at verse 11. So they said to him, What should we do to you so that the sea may become calm for us? The sea was becoming increasingly stormy. In other words, it was bad before, and now it's worse. It's getting worse. Now, what these pagans were missing was motive. They thought Jonah was running away from his God because he'd done something. They didn't know he was running away from God because he wouldn't do something. They thought Jonah had done something wrong. They didn't know Jonah was actually refusing

Scene Three: Overboard And Calm

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to do something right. But they just wanted to end. Okay, we've identified the culprit. You've told us you're running, and now we know who your God is, and we know that your God, according to you, created the sea, which we're now going to try to survive upon. Now what? And Jonah, I believe, stuns them by offering this solution, verse 12. He said to them, Pick me up and throw me into the sea. Then the sea will become calm for you, for I know that on account of me this great storm has come upon you. Now, I would expect them to just take them up and throw them over. Sold salt, okay, it works for us. Your history. Hold your breath and your nose and everything. What surprises me is verse 13. However, the men rode desperately to return to land, but they could not. For the sea was becoming even stormier. They rode desperately. The Hebrew literally means they dug in with their oars, with all their might to save their lives and to save Jonah's life. And don't miss this irony either. Jonah wouldn't lift a finger to save the lives of pagan Ninevites. And now these idol-worshipping sailors are putting their lives on the line to save his. Amazing to me. Can you imagine how convicted? I don't know if Jonah's sitting over somewhere watching these men put their backs into these oars, knowing they don't want him to die. We got to save this man's life along with our own. But it's no use. So the pagans now pray out of desperation to Yahweh. Verse 14. Then they called on the Lord and said, We earnestly pray, O Lord, do not let us perish on account of this man's life, and do not put innocent blood on us, for you, O Lord, have done as you have pleased. That's a pretty incredible prayer for a pagan. There's something happening in their lives. I'll come back to it in a moment. Verse 15. So they pick up Jonah and they throw him into the sea. And the sea stopped. It's raging. Now, have you noticed that before they throw him in, there's not one offer of repentance to God? Not one prayer to God. And as soon as he hits the water, the sea grows calm. Verse 16 says, then the men feared the Lord greatly. Oh? Now wait a second. Did you catch that? You ought to circle that word fear, track it back to where Jonas said, I fear God. Now they're fearing God, and it says they fear God greatly. Jonas said that earlier and he didn't mean it. Do they? Well, notice they offered a sacrifice to Yahweh and made vows. This is no foxhole conversion, by the way. They make these vows when? After the storm is over. After they have been delivered, they promise God to serve him as God alone. Imagine the revival. And Jonah missed it. Prodigals miss the good times of God's Spirit because they're too focused on not having their way with God's Spirit. So they miss these times. Let me pull out two truths of God's grace here that I observe in these scenes. One, number one, even when Jonah was disobedient, God used him for his glory. It's interesting to me. The conversion of these pagan sailors. I mean, who would have ever thought it possible? It's the revival in this little book, actually, that is most often overlooked. And yet, in spite of himself, Jonah would be used as a messenger of God to deliver just enough of an introduction that would bring about the submission

Grace Wins Even Through Failure

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of these old, salty sailors. One more lesson God's grace. Jonah was discarded by these sailors, but he is not discarded by God. I love that truth that we can observe here. God has a fish just about ready to move in. And I'll tell you something. If I'd been God, I would have sent a shark. A big one, yeah. So, you know, you know, Jonah could be swallowed whole. I know how the story ends. I'd have made sure Jonah lived, but he'd have teeth marks. He'd never forget. The good news here is that while Jonah wants to forget about God, God has not forgotten about Jonah. Jonah has resigned. God hasn't. You and I can never tire God out. Where sin abounds, grace abounds even more. In fact, as it relates to the walk of Jonah with God, a wonderful beginning is about to take place.