Sermons on Biblical Characters

by Clovis Gillham Chappell

Jonah did not want to undertake this mission. His objection, however, did not grow out of the fear that Nineveh would refuse to repent. His reluctance was not born of the conviction that there was nothing in the people of Nineveh to which his message would appeal. I know we are often hampered by that conviction. We feel that it is absolutely useless to preach to some folks. There is no use in trying to christianize Africa. There is no use even in trying to christianize some of our next door neighbors. We so often forget that there is in every man an insatiable hunger and an unquenchable thirst that none but God can satisfy.

But to Jonah this call was unwelcome because he feared that Nineveh might repent. And that he did not want Nineveh to do. Jonah believed that God was the God of Israel only. He believed that God blessed Israel in two ways. First, He blessed her by giving her gifts spiritual and temporal. And He blessed her, in the second place, by sending calamities upon her enemies. An abundant harvest in Israel was a blessing from the Lord. A famine in Nineveh was also a blessing from the Lord. Jonah was firmly convinced that the prosperity of a nation other than his own meant calamity to Israel.

It is a pity that this selfish belief did not perish with Jonah. But when we face the facts we know that it did not. It is a very human trait in us to feel that another's advancement is in some way a blow to ourselves. It is equally a human trait to feel that another's downfall and disgrace in some way adds a bit of luster to our own crowns. Of course, nothing could be more utterly false, but in spite of this fact we cling to that faith through all the passing centuries.

On the whole this duty, then, that God had put upon Jonah was so distasteful that he made up his mind that whatever it might cost him he would not obey. Therefore, we read that he "rose up to flee unto Tarshish from the presence of the Lord." Ordered to Nineveh he sets out for Tarshish. There were two cities on his map and only two. There was Nineveh, the city to which he might go in the fellowship of God and within the circle of the will of God. There was also Tarshish, the city that lay at the end of the rebel's road, the city whose streets, if ever he walked them at all, he would walk without the fellowship of the God whom he had disobeyed.

And there are just two cities on your map. The Nineveh of obedience and the Tarshish of disobedience. You are going to Nineveh or to Tarshish. I do not claim to know where your Nineveh is. It may be a distant city. It may be a city across the seas whose streets you will crimson with the blood of your sacrifice. It may be a city as near to you as the home in which you live, as the child that nestles in your arms. But wherever it is, if you walk its streets you will walk them in the joy of the divine fellowship.

On the other hand, you may go to Tarshish. Tarshish is the city of "Have-Your-Own-Way." It is the city of "Do-As-You-Please." It is the city of "Take-it-Easy." It is the city with no garden called Gethsemane without its gates and no rugged hill called Calvary overlooks its walls. It is a city without a cross and yet it is a city where people seldom sing and often sob. It is a city where nobody looks joyously into God's face and calls Him Father.

I met Jonah that day on the wharf. He looked like he had passed through a terrible spell of sickness. His cheeks were hollow. His eyes were red with sleeplessness. He had a haggard, worn, hounded look about him. "Are you on the way home, Jonah?" And he shook his head and said, "No. I am going to Tarshish." Tarshish was the most far away place of which the Jew had any conception. "Tarshish!" I say in astonishment. "What are you going to do over at Tarshish?" "Oh," he said, "I hadn't thought about that. I do not know what the future has in store for me. What I am trying to do is to get away from God." "And Jonah arose to flee unto Tarshish from the presence of the Lord."

I wonder why the text did not say "And Jonah arose to flee unto Tarshish from the presence of his duty" instead of "from the presence of the Lord." The writer of this story had real spiritual insight. He was far clearer in his thinking than many of us. He knew that to flee from duty was to flee from God. Whenever you make up your mind to refuse to go where God wants you to go and to do what God wants you to do, you must make up your mind at the same time to renounce the friendship of God. You cannot walk with Him and at the same time be in rebellion against Him. God has no possible way of entering into fellowship with the soul that is disobedient to His will. Believe me, it is absolutely useless, it is mere mockery, to say "Lord, Lord" and then refuse to do the things that He commands you to do.

Now, when Jonah saw the spaces of water growing wider between him and the shore a kind of deadly calm came upon him. A man with his mind made up to do wrong is far more at rest than the man whose mind is not made up at all. So when Jonah had fully decided that he would rebel against God and give up all claim to God, a dreadful restfulness came to his troubled spirit. He went down into the sides of the ship and went fast asleep. The days before had been troubled days. The nights had been restless nights. But the battle was over now, even though it had been lost, and he was able at last to sleep.

This period marks, I am sure, the period of greatest danger in the life of Jonah. Jonah had been a rebel before, but he had been a restless rebel. He had been disobedient before, but his disobedience had tortured him. It had put strands of gray into his hair and wrinkles upon his brow. But now he is not only in rebellion, but he is content to be so. He is not only without God, but he is, in a measure, satisfied to be without Him. No greater danger can come to any man than that. As long as your sin breaks your heart, as long as your disobedience makes you lie awake nights and wet your pillow in tears there is hope for you. But when you become contented with your wickedness, when you come to believe that it is the best possible for you, then you are in danger indeed.